The Costs of Illegal Immigrants

How much money do we spend on providing government services to illegal immigrants? And, what else could we be doing with this money?

It is, of course, very difficult to determine the exact difference between what is paid out to illegals versus was comes in through the taxes they pay. There are, however, recently published reports that provide some insight. One such report, issued by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, DC, estimates that the federal government spent $10 billion in 2002. Another report, issued by the Federation for American Immigration Reform suggested that the state of California alone paid another $10 billion. In fairness, we have no analytical basis for validating or refuting either of these numbers. And, in the context of full disclosure we note that another group, The National Latino Research Center, disputed the numbers although it did not offer details or alternative statistics.

To make these numbers more relevant, however, we need to make some rather broad adjustments to that $20 billion tab. First of all, those numbers were for 2002 and most estimates are that 2-3 million additional illegals have arrived since that time. Secondly, those numbers reflect only the federal government and the state of California. Other states, especially Arizona, Texas, Florida and New York have spent large sums too. So, the $20 billion per year figure is too low and needs to be revised upward. But by how much? Should it double? Triple? For the sake of argument we point to $40 billion and believe it to be an intuitive place to start.

So, the question that needs to be addressed is: as an American taxpayer are you comfortable spending $40 billion per year on providing social services and financial support for illegal immigrants? Or would you prefer to spend that money on other social priorities? To help answer that question we highlight below a couple of alternatives that $40 billion can buy:

• We could hire 400,000 new teachers for our schools.
• We could provide 3.5 million full scholarships to state universities.
• We could buy a new computer and educational software for all 48 million American children currently in grade school.
• We could fund the entire annual budget for each of America’s 125 largest charities (including The United Way, Salvation Army, Red Cross, American Cancer Society, and American Heart Association).
• We could provide $1,000 per month in additional assistance to our 3 million neediest senior citizens.
• We could provide medical insurance for 13 million single parents and their children.
• We could build 1,500 new schools and educate 1 million special needs children.
• We could give every soldier returning from Iraq a $10,000 paycheck for hazard pay and establish college scholarships for the children of those that have been killed.

In conclusion, we recommend that Americans take a minute and think about their social priorities and how they want their tax money to be spent. Importantly, there is no “right” answer in a country this large and diverse. But, the special interests, their lobbyists and the politicians they influence have been successful in seeing to it that this money is being spent on the illegal immigrant population. Some welcome this and believe it to be an appropriate use of funds. Others do not. How do you feel? If you value other priorities (like those above) then you need to speak up and express your views to your friends, colleagues and, dare we say, your elected officials.