Posted on 04/11/2005 5:25:04 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Analysis of the latest Census data indicates Texas’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $4.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to more than $3.7 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden amounts to about $725 per Texas household headed by a native-born resident.
This analysis looks specifically at the costs to the state for education, health care and incarceration resulting from illegal immigration. These three are the largest cost areas, and they are the same three areas analyzed in a 1994 study conducted by the Urban Institute, which provides a useful baseline for comparison ten years later. Other studies have been conducted in the interim, showing trends that support the conclusions of this report.
Other significant costs associated with illegal immigration exist, and these too should be taken into account by federal and state officials. Even without accounting for all of the numerous areas in which costs associated with illegal immigration are being incurred by Texas taxpayers, the program areas analyzed in this study indicate that the burden is substantial and that the costs are rapidly increasing.
The more than $4.7 billion in costs incurred by Texas taxpayers annually result from outlays in the following areas:
Education. Based on estimates of the illegal immigrant population in Texas and documented costs of K-12 schooling, Texans spend more than $4 billion annually on education for illegal immigrant children and for their U.S.-born siblings. About 11.9 percent of the K-12 public school students in Texas are children of illegal aliens.
Health Care. Taxpayer-funded medical outlays for health care provided to the state’s illegal alien population amount to about $520 million a year.
Incarceration. The uncompensated cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in Texas’s state and county prisons amounts to about $150 million a year (not including local jail detention costs or related law enforcement and judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to their incarceration). State and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go toward offsetting these costs, but they do not come near to matching the expenses. The total of such payments can generously be estimated at slightly less than $1 billion per year.
The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state’s taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, welfare programs used by the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were also calculated.
While the primary responsibility for combating illegal immigration rests with the federal government, there are many measures that state and local governments can take to combat the problem. Texans should not be expected to assume this already large and growing burden from illegal immigration simply because local businesses or other special interests benefit from being able to employ lower cost workers. The state could adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal alien use of taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed. Policies could then be pursued to hold employers financially accountable.
The state could also enter into a cooperative agreement with the federal government for training local law enforcement personnel in immigration law so illegal immigrants apprehended for breaking the law can be expeditiously turned over to the immigration authorities for removal from the country. Similarly, local officials who have adopted “sanctuary” measures that shield illegal aliens from being reported to the immigration authorities should be urged to repeal them.
Texas has also voluntarily adopted policies that add to the cost burdens of illegal immigration. While all states are compelled under a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision to provide a free K-12 education to all children, irrespective of their immigration status, they are under no obligation to subsidize education beyond that point. Nevertheless, the Texas legislature and Governor Perry have decided to grant in-state tuition benefits at public colleges and universities to illegal aliens.
It is unreasonable for a state to expect federal assistance to compensate for the fiscal burden of illegal immigration if it is pursuing policies that encourage illegal aliens to come and remain in the state.
The full report is available in html and pdf
April 2005
Cultures over run by migrating horde's never think it is a good thing and history teaches that often it is a very bad thing. For example the once Christan, western, enlighten middle east/north Africa was over run by Islam, and been a cesspool of humanity ever since. The once Romanized England was over run by Germans and that Island fell into the dark ages for over five hundred years.
I guess one could argue two categories. 1) A great civilization expanding and over running lessor civilizations/cultures and that is mostly good. Examples would be Roman civilization, or US/UK civilization. 2) A great civilization in decline being over run by lessor/inferior cultures. Examples would be fall of Rome, or Islamic culture replacing the declining Egyptian/Hellenistic culture of middle east/north Africa.
I disagree with your premise about illegals taking the jobs nobody wants.
We have too many citizen freeloaders on our tax doles getting welfare checks for doing nothing. Take those welfare checks away from the able bodied freeloaders who are pseudo-disabled, and suddenly those unwanted jobs will be in demand again. Most of those so called unwanted jobs are unwanted because too many people just don't want to work. Why work when our government sends a check and food stamps out every month?
Since when did certain jobs become too menial for Americans to perform?
"I disagree with your premise about illegals taking the jobs nobody wants."
Illegals take all types of jobs whether it be in agriculture, domestic, or carpentry. I'll agee that there are far too many folks out there that simply don't want to work. Many however find it more cost rewarding by not working. Eliminate the freebies, increase wages to something livable (market wages among legal residents) and the illegal problem should go away for the most part.
If a person is hungry enough and has no public dole to support them it shouldn't matter what kind of wage is paid. It is obvious that the illegals are happy to recieve the wages they get for those jobs that are now too good for Americans to perform. The illegals being willing to work for whatever they can get only lowers the wages of American citizens who do work in competing jobs.
We cannot allow this watering down effect on our standard of living. And the fact remains that those illegal immigrants are law breakers and are also degrading the quality of law enforcement because bureaucrats are overlooking them as law breakers and looking at them as new tax revenue. But the revenue will never materialize if they all end up getting free health care and public assistance. Unless us working people get tapped for more taxes which is already evident. Holding the American taxpayer hostage because somebody wants cheap undocumented workers is not conducive to economic progress.
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