Listing The Cost of Illegal Immigration (Help Complete The List!) - Vanity

soccer8 | 4 February 2007 | self

[batter]

The Utah State Legislature may consider a bill proposed by Utah Latino Leaders but not yet drafted that will “study of the economic impact of undocumented immigrants to Utah's budget and economy.” The bill appears to be in response to a legislative audit request (a legislator initiates these) to determine the cost of educating illegal immigrants' children.

You will note the bill will likely have an inherent bias and other legislators will hopefully attempt to amend the bill to allow a full accounting of the costs and benefits illegal immigrants provide (especially if tax funds will be used to pay for the study). The benefits are certainly taken care of, therefore, I am only interested in listing the costs.

In an effort to assist legislators, I compiled my own list regarding some of the costs which should be evaluated in the study.

I would like FReepers to add anything you think I missed.

Here's the list:

Health Care

• Emergency Room visits – uninsured patient costs (no reimbursement), increased use/stress on ERs due to caring for routine problems typically taken to family practitioners.

• Insurance costs – hospitals inflate bills to insurance companies in an attempt to recoup some of the uninsured costs, costs are passed along to the insured in the form of decreased benefits and/or increased premiums/deductibles/payments etc.

• Effect on legal low-incomes – resources reserved for the needy may be stretched thin or inadequate to fulfill needs due to the added burden of illegal immigrant families (and their 'health care subsidized' employers). This would include hospitals, clinics for the poor, and sundry charitable efforts.

• State/Federal programs – Emergency Medicaid (such as labor & delivery) is granted without verification of documentation. A contact working in a related state agency notes that, frequently, stolen/false SSNs are used on forms but nothing can be done due to medical confidentiality laws (even law enforcement and US Marshals cannot be granted the information). This all raises the burden on State and US taxpayers.

Law Enforcement (including local law enforcement)

• Incarceration costs.

• General enforcement costs – the apprehension of criminals prior to incarceration.

• Identity theft (1) – enforcement and manpower etc costs (such as the Swift Meats plant crackdowns by ICE).

• Identity theft (2) – costs to victims (time and monetary, also - "time is money") and companies assisting those victims (the credit companies, like Equifax etc, banks, various credit lenders and banks).

***NOTE: Portions of this are federal costs, but Utah taxpayers also pay federal taxes.

Monetary

• Money sent back to illegal immigrant's home country is taken from state and local economies. It may be argued that legal immigrants do so as well. However, the study is to measure the specific impact of illegal immigrants. Additionally, I would argue that, as a country and state, we fully accepted the cost of legal immigrants doing so (we provided their legal status); illegal immigrants, however, never gave us the opportunity to place their cost into our national balance sheets. Thus, the cost is not accounted for.

• Future value of the above money is lost – it is out of the economy (it's in Europe's, Asia's, South America's, Africa's,...).

Transportation

• Insurance – similar to health insurance – costs are increased due to uninsured motorists and under-insured motorists. Costs are passed on to the injured.

• General accidents with injury – health insurance and the injured (as well as their families) bear the costs (including lost wages, ER bills, etc). Lost wages may also affect house, car etc payments.

• Drunk driving incidents – recently an illegal immigrant rolled his truck and left it in the middle of a road. Later a nurse stopped to see if anyone needed help and was killed by another driver that ran into the overturned truck. In December, three members of a family were killed. This brings law enforcement cost as well as costs to the family (funeral, emotional, loss of a provider's income etc).

• Miscellaneous transportation – increased traffic on roads, pollution costs, (these may be relatively small depending on the proportion of illegal immigrants in a given area).

Labor

• Wages – wages are artificially suppressed by a labor pool willing to work at reduced rates and by employers more than willing to take care of that low cost labor.

• Loss of Monetary Fluidity (disposable income) – goes along with wage suppression – occupations once providing a middle or middle-lower income now only provide a low income resulting in the depressed economic activity. (For example, the meat packing industry wagers were in the $19 per hour range twenty years ago, now the rate is $9.50). The money is now used for food and make ends meet rather than providing an economic stimulus. Future value of the economic stimulus is also lost.

Education

• Specialized educators/training – ESL teachers, initial and ongoing training, resources and materials

• General educational costs – Classrooms, teacher salaries, lights, misc. overhead

• Universities – in-state tuition is granted to illegal immigrants (provided they attended high school in the state) while legal immigrants pay non-resident tuition (or even higher 'international student' tuition) rates. Even if they did attend high school in Utah, they would be ineligible for the tuition break. If illegal immigrants had obeyed the law the too would pay the higher tuition rate. This results in a monetary cost to the state's taxpayers.

• Question – are illegal immigrants enrolled in above state tuition programs eligible for Pell Grants/ or reduced/subsidized student loans?

General State/Federal (and Local) Programs

• Driver Privilege Cards – program administration, overhead, materials etc. (The fees may cover these costs or even generate revenues).

• It is believed (within regulating agencies) that illegal immigrants may also be eligible for subsidized daycare.

• Children born here (this may not be a valid cost as they are citizens, while their family is not) are eligible for welfare, food stamps, CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program), WIC (Women Infants Children) etc. Nevertheless, there is a belief (within regulating agencies) that otherwise ineligible parties have acquired these resources. Again, the burden may be borne by taxpayers and charities and denied to otherwise eligible recipients.

• IMO – except for the "driver cards" (unless they have a trucking/delivery job), the above are, ultimately, a subsidy for employers of illegal immigrants.

Included in all this should be not only be the direct expenditures but also the indirect costs associated with program administration (including mundane form processing) by administrative staff and other professionals (such as the pay, health care benefits, special training, special recruiting, overhead etc).

Additionally, costs to local governments and entities (such as water and sewer districts) rather than just State Government should be evaluated. If we're really going to do this analysis – lets make it complete!

[batter]

Please add any omissions etc you may notice!

For more background information as to why it is so important to include the local costs see: Legislation: Immigrants - Do they help or hurt Utah?. By omitting local costs (to government) and looking solely at state costs, results are skewed in favor of illegal immigrant activists - I believe that is what the State Senator will attempt.

[batter]

I have to run some errands but will be back later. Thanks for all your help!

[batter]

PING!

gubamyster - I would appreciate it if you could ping your list too.

[batter]

Utah Ping!</p>

[batter]

Thanks. I appreciate any other resources folks can give me.

[libertarian27]

Ping

[Emmett McCarthy]

I have heard from a sister who recently retired from county government that there are huge costs involved in the translating and printing of all government forms and documents into various and sundry languages. It can run into millions.

The most ridiculous irony is that, especially for the invaders from South of the Border, many are illiterate in their native language anyway so it serves no purpose whatsoever.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Add to labor house framing, roofing, and some other construction skills. The dollar amounts are similar to the meat packer example you use. The savings are not being passed on to the buyer.

Not really sure under which heading this goes, but don't forget illegal alien clown car magic show accidents.
The car has an accident, dozens of people run out of it and disappear, including the driver. The vehicle somehow ends up licensed to nobody. I hear these these type of accidents are happening more and more each day.

[KeyesPlease]

Don't know what the law is in Utah, but in NJ even illegals are covered by workers' compensation insurance. In NJ this benefit includes temporary disability payments, a lump sum permanent injury payment and 100% of medical costs incurred due to most workplace injuries - regardless of fault.

[lady lawyer]

Deterioration of neighborhoods as illegals cram three or four families into a unit designed for one.

Re: suppressed wages, two points. The American citizens who are displaced by the lower-paid illegals are receiving government assistance. That is another cost of illegal aliens.

When employers pay less than a living wage to illegals, they are, in essence, forcing the rest of us to subsidize their companies with the public services that illegals use because they can't afford private services.

[DancesWithBolsheviks]

Spreading earnings across multiple fake identities within the course of a year can result in each of those identities earning below the poverty line and each of those identities will then be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Don't know how widespread this practice is, but I often read about raids where the illegal employees return a few days after the raid with new identities.

[norton]

I have no idea how to track it but there must be costs associated with the coming and going of gang members and 'cousins from mexico'.

I've seen resident's kids change and go along with their 'cousins', then, and when something goes bad, the cousin is gone. At least one friend lost a car because it was loaned to a 'cousin' by his girlfriend; car was impounded (written off) and the girlfriend wound up suing my friend as a payback. (?/!)

I'm also surprised that the posted list does not include the drug trade that has illegals here distributing for criminals in mexico.

[DancesWithBolsheviks]

The negative belief passed on to our children that some (decent honest starter) jobs are somehow below their dignity when politicians constantly tell us that there are jobs that 'Americans won't do.'

[DumpsterDiver]

New Study Shows Illegal Aliens Costs New Jersey More Than 2.1 Billion per Year
Feb 5, 2007
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1779360/posts

Mexifornia, Five Years Later
By Victor Davis Hansen
Feb 2, 2007
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1779403/posts

[non-anonymous]

Along the same lines, increased expenditure for live translators.

[Atlas Sneezed]

I know you have "law enforcement", but CRIME is a key area. From cultural issues that do not respect private property, graffiti that brings down property values and fosters a criminal mindset, to the fact that we are starting with people who at least once consider crime top be OK, if it helps them.

Then there's the whole language, culture thing.

[art_rocks]

Didn't include the lost jobs that Americans aren't working. How many American men would be construction workers except that illegals now work at a lower salary.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Correct. I have heard that they are often necessary at basic things like parent/teacher conferences at something on the order of $25-30 an hour.

[ridesthemiles]

Please add any omissions etc you may notice!""

This may seem obscure, but I know it exists, especially among women friends of mine:

I won't go into a store to shop where I detect an abundance of stragglers hanging around the parking lot "looking for work". LISTEN UP: HOME DEPOT!! You have permanently lost me to LOWES. I am just as concerned they are looking for a car to break into or steal or other trouble.

I won't go into a restaurant where I detect more employees not speaking English than those which are speaking English. EI: TACO BELL--McDONALD'S-- I don't trust the order to be done correctly, nor the overall cleanliness of the food preparation. It also offends me that even at work behind the counter they don't make ANY attempt to converse in English. They all talk whatever was their mother speech. It is just plain rude. They are here, they want to "work, but they don't want to assimilate at all.

In general, My money is being spent online or by catalog in more instances than ever before because I don't want to be where they are. At least I know my UPS driver, he is white, courteous, and an AMERICAN CITIZEN. I just don't feel safe going out into the streets nearly as much any more, PERIOD.

This makes an impact on the business of my area, which eventually impacts all the services the county or city or state can afford to provide. It becomes a vicisous circle, as money needed for law enforcement gets smaller while the problems get bigger.