Posted on 12/08/2006 8:17:53 AM PST by Graybeard58
AUSTIN — Undocumented immigrants have boosted the state's economy by $17.7 billion and haven't been a drain on state government — but they did cost local governments $929 million in 2005, the Texas comptroller's office reported Thursday.
The report by Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn is the first comprehensive effort by the state government to calculate the benefits and costs of having 1.4 million to 1.6 million undocumented immigrants in Texas.
Overall, the survey found undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in state services.
But the report's results quickly became part of a brewing legislative debate over whether it is right for people who are in the country illegally to receive services paid for by citizens and legal resident taxpayers.
Most of the undocumented immigrants in Texas are from Latin America, predominantly Mexico. They are the working poor, doing service and construction jobs. But they also will send $5.2 billion home to their native countries this year, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.
In her recent unsuccessful campaign for governor, Strayhorn said the federal government needs to halt illegal immigration. On Thursday, she said her report showed the need for federal immigration reform to make sure needed workers are in the country legally.
"It certainly demonstrates that you need a guest worker program, but you also need a fair immigration plan," Strayhorn said.
The Strayhorn report used a model that was built on how much undocumented immigrants earn as well as the return on capital from their labor to produce an impact on the gross state product. The $17.7 billion positive impact on the state's economy does not factor in any effects of the immigrants sending money home.
The report estimated there are 135,000 undocumented children in the public school system, costing the state $957 million a year. Another 3,792 are in state colleges, costing about $11.2 million.
The cost for the state supplying health care programs for undocumented immigrants was set at $57.9 million.
The state prison system on an average day held 8,931 illegal immigrants, costing a total of $130.6 million a year, the report stated.
The total cost for state services was $1.15 billion, but undocumented immigrants, through sales and property taxes, provided $1.58 billion in taxes for the state. That was a net positive impact to state finances of $424.7 million, Strayhorn said.
But there was a negative impact on local governments.
The total cost to incarcerate immigrants who commit crimes was estimated to be $49 million for counties statewide.
Strayhorn's office estimated the cost was $18.9 million for Harris County, the highest in the state. Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley was second at $5.2 million.
Bexar County was fifth in the state, with an annual cost of $3.9 million.
Another $92.9 million is being spent on courts and probation systems to handle undocumented immigrants.
The biggest local cost was for indigent health care provided by counties and local hospital districts, estimated at $1.3 billion statewide.
But undocumented immigrants in 2005 paid $513 million in local sales and property taxes, leaving a $929 million gap payment gap for local services.
State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, who has introduced controversial legislation to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, said he believes the costs are much higher than those in Strayhorn's report.
Citing a study done by the conservative Lone Star Foundation, Berman said the total cost to the state is $4.5 billion a year to provide services to immigrants, but he said they pay just $1 billion in tax collections.
"This is the net loss to the taxpayers of the state," he said.
Berman said he also supports a guest worker program because the immigrants are needed for the economy. But he said he does not want them to receive any state or local services that are not mandated by federal law.
YAY! Great link. Amen & alleluia,somebody gets it!
ping
Yes indeed. Several years ago I lived in El Paso, population at the time around a half million. Its one public hospital, Thomason, is supported by county property taxes, and under the Texas Constitution has to provide care to everyone who walks through the doors, including any and all of the 1.5 million living in Cd. Juarez across the river in Mexico. County taxpayers pick up the bill at enormous cost. Also, every pregnant woman in Juarez would wait until she was going into labor, cross the border and have the taxi take her straight to Thomason so her new baby would have birthright citizenship and all its entitlements, while she moved to the front of the line to immigrate because of her relationship to her new citizen baby. There was no accounting done. The County Commission one time tried to sue the federal government because of the burden of maintaining Thomason for an entire Mexican city, but had no luck.
What taxes are they talking about? The "poor" do not pay taxes. This is an outright LIE, IMO.
"Cost of Illegals to California $10.5 Billion":
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1750476/posts
There is no positive aspect to illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants DO NOT pay taxes. How can they with no SSN or a false SSN? They simply suck off of the system and provide big business the means to evade taxes as well, that's why we are getting fed this FALSE data.
If I had to judge by the line at our local HEB on payday, a whole lot of money flows south.
Right on. When facts contradict what I believe, ignoring the facts is the way to go.
This study left off the cost of their crime: lives, property stolen, etc.
In Texas alone, the cost of stolen pickups by illegal smugglers is most likely in the millions of dollars. Smugglers take them out of parking lots in big cities and then drive them for 20,000 to 30,000 miles over the course of a few weeks as they course back and forth the border. The trucks are stripped insides and ruined by the time they are caught by the Border Patrol.
Then add in the cost of their drunk driving damages. Then add in the cost of lost lives from murder or manslaughter. If we ignore the cost of crime then we could say that murderers and thieves add to the economy as well.
But in all cases, the effect of these illegals come up NEGATIVE. It's a question of how big this negative amount is. Are we going backward slowly, or quickly?
Strayhorn misses an important point: 'the rule of law.' If we don't protect our borders (and our citizenship) then we create anarchy within and without our borders because we become a lawless country. With citizenship comes rights as well as responsibilities. With citizenship comes our destiny because demography is destiny. The Mexican laborors that sneak across the border do not add to our economy, but Mexican doctors and engineers would. We need those type of people, not the bottom of Mexican (and Central America's) society. Our legal immigration was (before Kennedy) designed to encourage this. We need to return to a strong enforcement of immigration based on contribution to our economy (like New Zealand). And we need to do it very quickly, before the boomers start pulling down Social Security and before Asian countries start to buy up our country.
We will become a Mexico if Bush goes through with another amnesty.
I don't know how anyone can do a valid study on the economical impacts when they can't even say for sure how many are actually here.
Of course! We all do. I like that!
I just don't believe that governments can, or should be expected to be 'unbiased.' Let's just bring out all the bias, label it for what it is, and decide on each element.
Like the 9/11 commish or the Iraq Surrender Group or the Black Congressional Caucus or the media. Everyone has an agenda.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics!
I firmly believe it already has. And our government has unconstitutionally allowed it.
Go back and read what they said about this study when it was started, look at what they counted and didn't count, and tell me you agree with such methodology.
oops posted in wrong thread.
Bottom line. The illegals are not ruining the US. They are not building it either. They are just there. Three to ten percent of the population simply can not be responsible for the problems or solutions or greatness or downfall of the United States.
Not really. If texas switched to an income tax, you would find business would have to pay their workers more to cover the cost of the tax and then they would raise prices accordingly.
What I am saying is THE INCOME TAX IS EMBEDDED IN THE COST OF GOODS SOLD AND IS PAID BY THE CONSUMER.
IT IS IN FACT A TREMENDOUS BOON TO THE US
And here is why. Suppose all the working men in the US sent their children, wives and elderly to mexico and just worked at their job in the US. No more taxes for schools, medicare, social security, etc. and then you could sent one tenth that amount to support them in Mexico.
A working man probably needs 100,000 a year to keep a family in the US, but could do it on 40,000 if he shipped them off to Mexico and sent them money instead.
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