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

soccer8 | 4 February 2007 | self

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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!

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Could you be more detailed?
Unmaintained vehicles? Waste due to crowded living conditions?

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Good one! They are, indeed, entitle to Workers Comp here as well. I would be willing to bed they get a fair amount due to their increased concentration in the construction etc fields.

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Good point. It does depend on how widespread the practice is. If it is widespread, it could have a considerable impact.

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Just thought of something else. I wonder how often spouses will file separately and claim the EIC and other tax benefits. How would the US gov know they're married?

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They do engage in the drug trade here in Utah as well. I was thinking that would be covered in the Law Enforcement aspect (apprehension of criminals).

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Thanks for the links. They will be very useful.

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B - I should have stated 'crime' more explicitly. That is what I meant by "apprehension of criminals" but should have been more specific to include the cost to victims and prosecutorial costs as well.

art_rocks - I think that would go along with 'wages artificially suppressed'.

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rids and Nea - Thanks for bringing this up. I believe it is a valid cost. It's happened to me. One example:

I went to a McDonald's (first time in years). We wondered what was taking so long - by the time it was our turn, we figured it out. Every order had to be translated for the cooks in the back. We walked out and went home for lunch and never returned since. We don't go to several restaurants in the area any longer.

The result - less money entering the local economy (and the future value thereof). I guess the up side is a healthier diet for us (we eat at home more).

[batter]

That is something I didn't think of. I honestly don't know how many disease outbreaks, particularly of rare/eradicated US diseases, and their treatment costs, are attributable to illegal immigrants in Utah. I would be worth looking into or seeing if the health care field has kept any stats on it.

[batter]

Thanks for taking my thought one step further than I had. I entirely forgot the interpreter stuff (which transcends many of the categories I posted) nor did I come up with the Housing Assistance they may receive.

Speaking of which, many state agencies are translating their web pages and the state also has a site dedicated to the Hispanic population. That also involves all the administrative costs of implementation and maintenance etc.

[norton]

"They do engage in the drug trade here in Utah as well. I was thinking that would be covered in the Law Enforcement aspect (apprehension of criminals)."

An entirely different category - 'criminal' covers car theft, ID theft, etc. Drugs and other smuggling and distribution is another step up (down?) the scale.
A rather big step.

[batter]

Thanks for all the suggestions and help! FReepers (and FReepettes) can always be depended upon.

Also, sorry for not responding sooner. My errands ended up costing me an entire day (Murphy's Law is real).

gubamyster - a special thanks for pinging you list. I appreciate it.

[VOA]

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

"Res ipsa loquitar"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=crimaliens

[batter]

Ok. You're right, my "apprehension" isn't descriptive enough. It should be it's own category under law enforcement.

[longtermmemmory]

There is the long term deficit.

You have illegal aliens who take seats in universities; illegals obtaining instate tuitition taking a seat from an instate student by blocking them from getting needed classes.

You also have the cost of allowing CRIMINALS go on the street withoug consequence to criminal conduct. (they should be declared felons as part of the current rolling amnesty so they lose their voting right if they become citizens)

Depression of wages.

Depression of FUTURE income since illegals are here only to pillage and take away.

Now with the new social security give away, social security will be bankrupt faster.

dilution of national cohesion because the illegal population tends to balkanize into enclaves and sub cultures which do not speak the national language.

Univision is a consequence of illegal immigration. There should be no need for a US based spanish language anything. (or any other such massive undertaking)

[Dante3]

There are consequences specific to communities as well as overall consequence for the country. In my community, with a great influx of immigrants, we face a serious overpopulation issue and problems arising from it. Crowding certainly has many implications (as delineated by Tom Wolfe in his essay "Sliding down the behavioral sink" in The Pump House Gang). Pollution, littering, traffic jams, destruction of scene or historic areas for "affordable housing," etc.

I wish I had saved references to some of the statements made during Sierra Club's last election. They contained some relevant specific data.

[batter]

I see what you mean, now. Thanks.