The Economics of Immigration Enforcement
by Edwin S. Rubinstein
Research from
The National Policy Institute
All NPI publications can be found at:
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/publications
December 2005: Issue Number 101
Synopsis
In July 2005, the Center for American Progress published a report assessing the costs of arresting, detaining, prosecuting, and deporting illegal aliens. The study, Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion over five years or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period. The following paper reviews the data on mass deportation. In reassessing the cost, the following analysis compares and contrasts what an amnesty would cost taxpayers in terms of social services, lost wages, health care subsidies, and educational expenditures. The author concludes that comparative estimates demonstrate “no matter how high the costs of deporting illegal aliens may seem, the costs of not deporting them are larger still.”
Excerpt:
A July 2005 study questions whether deporting illegal immigrants would be worth the costs. Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment is published by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank. Its authors claim the study is the first-ever estimate of costs associated with arresting, detaining, prosecuting, and removing immigrants who have entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas.
The cost of mass deportation?: $206 to $230 billion over five-years, depending on how many illegals leave voluntarily. That’s an average cost of $41 billion to $46 billion per year for five years. About 10 million illegals would be subject to deportation, according to the study.
Advocates for tougher immigration laws say the estimates are too high. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies argues, for example, that as many as 50 percent of illegals would leave voluntarily if the government were to initiate an aggressive deportation policy. By contrast, the study assumes only 10 to 20 percent would leave voluntarily.
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.–CO) called the study “an interesting intellectual exercise” that is “useless…because no one’s talking about” mass deportation. Rather than deport individuals he would impose fines and impose sanctions on employers who employ illegals—something the government has stubbornly refused to do.
We believe that neither the pro- nor the anti-immigration groups are asking the right questions. Neither side has assessed the costs of maintaining the status quo, i.e., the annual costs of an immigration policy that refuses to either stem the influx of illegal aliens or deport illegals already here.
Illegal aliens are poorer than natives. They are eligible for welfare, medical assistance, and housing subsidies. Like all people, they enroll their children in school, drive on roads, and require police, fire, and sanitation services. They are also more likely to be incarcerated.
They also pay taxes. Even when working “off the books” illegal immigrants can’t avoid paying excise, sales and other taxes. So the fact that they receive public benefits does not necessarily mean they are a net drain.
Unfortunately, every study of the fiscal impact of immigration finds that the public expenditures attributable to illegal immigrants exceed their tax payments by a wide margin.
In addition there are indirect economic costs. Illegal immigrants reduce the incomes and employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers. Since the 1986 amnesty illegal aliens have become the largest contributor to U.S. labor force growth. Immigrant inflows—about one-third to one-half of which are comprised of illegal immigrants—accounted for almost half of U.S. labor force growth in recent years, and even more in certain areas and industries.
About 15 percent of U.S. workers were foreign born in 2004, up from 10 percent in 1990. Exactly how much of a reduction this has had on incomes of U.S. born workers cannot be known with certainty. A study by Harvard University Professor George Borjas concludes, however, that every 10 percent increase in the
U.S. labor force due to immigration reduces wages of native workers by about 3.5 percent. If Borjas is right, the income lost by displaced native born workers is enormous and growing rapidly.
In this paper we will show that, no matter how high the costs of deporting illegal aliens may seem, the costs of not deporting them are larger still.
Illegals Hurt Government Finances
Illegal aliens receive more than $26.3 billion in federal services while paying only $16 billion in federal taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of about $10.3 billion. The figures for 2002 are from a report published by the Center for Immigration Studies in 2004. These are conservative estimates…
17 Comments on “The Economics of Immigration Enforcement”
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Thank you for making this available to the American Public!
Many blessings,
Lorrie Reckamp
Give the American people access to busses!! And we will be more than glad to load ALL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS up and give them a FREE RIDE BACK TO THEIR IMMORAL COUNTRY !!!!!!!!!
THE EXERCISE WAS WASTED MONEY SINCE THERE WILL NOT BE FORCED DEPORTATION…….ATTRITION THROUGH ENFORCEMENT IS THE HUMANE WAY TO GET ILLEGAL ALIENS TO SELF DEPORT……..
REMOVE THE JOBS (THROUGH E-VERIFY) AND REMOVE ALL BENEFITS IN STATES OTHER THAN THE MEDICAL AND EDUCATIONAL ONES BY THE FEDS……
FOLKS, WITHOUT WELFARE AND WITHOUT JOBS………THE ILLEGALS WILL SELF DEPORT……THE ONES LEFT HERE WILL BE CRIMINALS…….A PRETTY SIZEABLE NUMBER……
IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED 12 STATES HAVE PASSED LAWS TO KEEP ILLEGAL ALIENS FROM BEING EMPLOYED……….ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE LEAVING THOSE STATES AND HEADING OUT OF THE COUNTRY OR TO A STATE WHERE THERE ARE NOT STRICT STATE IMMIGRATION CONTROL LAWS……..SURELY THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE’S BEHAVIOR……WHEN THEY START GETTING HUNGRY THEY WILL LEAVE…….
NONE COME HERE BECAUSE OF OUR COUNTRY…….THESE SEMI ILLITERATE COME HERE FOR THE DOLLAR……AND WELFARE……..THAT’S IT……
I am against illegal immigrants coming in and stealing our jobs. Why can’t they stay in their own country and commit crimes there? They are 1) Stealing our jobs 2) Raising our taxes 3) Committing crimes. They have no reason for residing here and they need to be deported now. Legal immigrants, however, are fine, as long as they do not steal my jobs. I think we should prosecute low-wage employers, then without jobs, they will self-deport. But it won’t be that easy, and it will cost money.
ALL OF US KNOW THAT NOTHING WILL CHANGE BECAUSE THE POLITICIANS WILL NOT ALLOW IT, THEY ARE GETTING THE VOTES THEY NEED TO STAY IN OFFICE. AFTER ALL, THEY ARE THE RESPONSIBLE PARTY FOR ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN; WE CANNOT BLAME THE ILLEGAL ALIENS; WOULDN’T YOU LIKE IT IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR GROCERIES, MEDICAL EXPENSES OR EDUCATION AND ALL OF YOUR INCOME COULD BE SPENT ON YOUR DESIRES!!!!
Illega aliens are enimies of the USA they should get nothing from the goverment. The goverment is foolish to help these evil wicked animals I cant understand what has happened to our country.Every true American should to all they can to stop these illegal aliens.WAKE UP AMERICA AND SEE THE TRUTH AND TAKE ACTION
We have become a dumping ground for third world trash. When will it happen?, that all whites must cast their eye’s to the ground when meeting a black or any other minority less that black or minority should be offended.
I am amazed that only five comments have been recorded on such an important subject, it shows that American citizens care less about the illegal immigration issue than our leaders in government, America was founded and built on laws that define clearly what is right and wrong legal and illegal for all the citizens and legal residence of the United States of America.
When a visitor receives a visa to the US the immigration department must have on record how long they will be staying in the country and where they will be residing, their information is on file and our government needs to keep track of who left the country on time and who is overstaying their visa, with the supposed smart technology that we have the immigration department can simply keep track of lawbreakers that overstay their visa with the airlines on who is coming and who is leaving, it wouldn’t cost billions of dollars to maintain such an information network between the agencies and enforce the law, if you overstay your visit you should be fined then sent back to your country of origin, this system can generate hundreds of millions of dollars from people who overstay their visa, a database can be created to monitor anyone that comes back to the US illegally and when someone is picked up a second time their penalty should be much greater than the fine they paid for their first offense.
Illegals climbing walls fences or walking into the US through the porous desert region could be dealt with the same way, we are a humane society that helps people all over the world but that doesn’t mean we should reward illegal immigrants that pour into our country with social services in our schools hospitals welfare housing and so much more, the governments in their native countries fail to help these people in the simplest way, disingagement by their governments pushes them out their revolving door right on America’s doorstep where they become our problem, the taxpayers of this great country.
Let me ask a simple question, if we didn’t have a law that penalized a thief or a murderer, what would our country be like ? we would have people stealing and killing each other, same thing with our borders and illegal immigrants, as long as their is no federal law to deal with the illegal immigrants in a firm way they will continue to pour into the country unabated, once our government takes a uniform stand against illegals our problems will continue to multiply, I understand not all illegals are not bad people, that doesn’t matter, they entered this country illegally and they must either leave voluntarily or sooner than later a law will be passed that will rid this country of all the illegals.
Illegals are raping our woman and children, stealing from all of us, and killing our innocent brothers sisters mothers and fathers.
We the American people elected our leaders in the house and senate to pass laws that serve and protect us the American people, not the special interest lobby, not special interest groups and organizations, not the interests of some corporate clients that want cheap labor while at the same time these corporate clients are shipping jobs overseas, their greed has been detrimental to America the labor force and America’s wellbeing.
Special interest groups organizations with their lobby must be silenced so America can get back to doing what is good for America and the people of this great nation.
It’s time for the house and senate to get together and pass a bill to correct the wrong that has been committed on this great nation and it’s citizens and legal residents.
I beg to differ with the estimated cost of 41 to 46 billion dollars a year to round up and deport all the illegal immigrants in this country, the five year plan is estimated to cost between 206 and 230 billion dollars is an extremely hostile and exaggerated figure.
Many millions of immigrants are known by Americans that live and work with these people, they can easily be identified and turned in to local police immigration department or whatever agency the government would want such information to go to.
That would be half the problem solved as far as cost, if an agency could be created as an arm to handle process and deport illegal immigrants on leads from the public, it would dramatically cut the costs put people back to work and reduce the stressed budgets of thousands of communities across the country.
Many communities across the country that have sizable illegal immigrant residence, their budgets have increased anywhere from 5% to 20% depending on the population.
The time has come for bold and firm decisions to be made concerning the illegal immigration issue, not everyone will like or agree with such decisions especially immigrants and their supporters, none the less they must be made, our elected leaders must step up to the plate and make courageous decisions and put an end to the illegal immigration that has threatened our security jobs wellbeing and future.
You know, of course, the deed is done in terms of tipping the demographic balance against the founding people of this country. The many children of illegals, who are born here because their parents exploited a constitutional loophole which gave their kids automatic citizenship, will continue the process. This can only be stopped by repealing this loophole retro-actively, whereby children born to persons illegally present in the country, or even to those born to parents who are legally present but not citizens, are stripped of US citizenship and automatically conferred with, or restored to, the original citizenship of their parents. Most of these children probably have duel-citizenship anyway, so they would not become stateless persons. They would then need to return to their home countries.
And then, of course, there are the sheer numbers–veritable hords–of new legal immigrants who are granted green-cards, citizenship, and our jobs each year….
If there is enough information provided to the public and the public actually has the brass to do what’s right for themselves it si just possible to get our nation on the right track.
With OsambobinBiden showing the country the true Color of Progressive Facists maybe there will be enough backlash to finally cleanup the country.
We have an even larger threat coming that we need to address right now. Don’t let these facist progressive libs hijack our country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpQDFhwUjDE
In my neighbourhood, the Mexicans are hard workers and the Whites stay home and drink beer, smoke, watch movies and play video games. Maybe we should reconsider who should be deported.
From the above:
“About 10 million illegals would be subject to deportation…”
There are between 25 and 30 million illegal immigrants in the US.
The fictional number “10-12 million” has made remarkable headway, even among immigration hawks. Accepting your opponents’ false premises is not the way to victory.
We all know who are the illegal immigrants. So, we just report them all to the SS to have them deported. All the ones with funny sounding Spanish or otherwise names will be deported.Great solution. Screw the rights of man, just deport all of them
«Screw the rights of man, just deport all of them»
What rights do you have when you’re an illegal immigrant in a country. Unless you’re applying for refugee status, you certainly don’t have the right to pass for a poor innocent victim.
The great hero of WWII, General Dwight Eisenhower, elected as President of the United States, recognized the Mexican invasion in 1954 and took strong action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
“Burgeoning numbers of Mexican immigrants prompted President Dwight D. Eisenhower to appoint his longtime friend, General Joseph Swing, as INS Commissioner. According to Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration upon taking office. In a letter to Sen. William Fulbright, Eisenhower quoted a report in The New York Times that said, “The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican ‘wetbacks’ (rooted from the watery route taken by the Mexican immigrants across the Rio Grande) to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government.”
Since 1954, the Cultural Marxists, lead by traitorous Jew immigrants from the Frankfurt school, have taken over the media and banking system to ensure that candidates for elected office would sell their souls to the devil of cultural diversity.
There is really only one thing left to do…and if you are not preparing you will be swept under by the tsunami that is coming.
I think there’s lots more than 30 million of them here.