Illegal immigration is one of the most controversial topics of this overheated election season. Suggestions to curb illegal immigration by building a wall or increasing enforcement of existing laws are met with passionate accusations of racism and white supremacy. The Census can’t even ask about citizenship.
What is the bottomline cost to the United States and Nevada? That too is controversial. Every time someone comes up with a cost estimate, someone else declares the study fatally flawed, because the estimates are inflated or deflated or simply unknowable since people in the country illegally will not admit it.
Illegal immigrants pay taxes the same as everyone else — sales tax, income tax, property tax, vehicle registration fees. They also receive costly government services — education, welfare, criminal justice system, health care.
Recently the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) calculated that illegal immigrants received $135 billion a year in various expenditures, but paid in only $19 billion in national, state and local taxes — for a total “fiscal burden” of $116 billion. Since Nevada has about 2 percent of the nation’s illegal immigrant population that works out to more than $2 billion for the state’s taxpayers.
A couple of years ago Pew Research Center broke down just one aspect of the cost of illegal immigration — K-12 education.
Pew reported that in 2014, “States in the West and Southwest tend to have the highest shares of K-12 students with unauthorized immigrant parents. In six states, the share is 10% or more: Nevada (17.6%) ranked first, followed by Texas (13.4%), California (12.3%), Arizona (12.2%), Colorado (10.2%) and New Mexico (10.1%).” Of course, many of those children were born in the United States and thus are themselves American citizens, but would not be in class had their parents not come here without the benefit of legal entry.
At the time Nevada was spending about $4 billion a year on K-12 education, meaning the children of illegals cost Nevada about $700 million a year. Spending has increased since then.
In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of Plyler v. Doe that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education due to their immigration status, because the 14th Amendment states, “No state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Recently the Las Vegas newspaper delved into another cost of illegal immigration, reporting that about one out of 14 inmates serving time in Nevada prisons is in the country illegally — a total of 1,000 criminals, 500 of them convicted of violent felonies. That costs Nevada taxpayers about $21 million a year, the newspaper calculated.
A study by FAIR a decade ago calculated the cost to Nevadans for health care, “State-funded and uncompensated outlays for health care provided to Nevada’s illegal alien population amount to more than an estimated $85 million a year. That is a net cost after crediting compensation from the federal government. Nevadans who have medical insurance pay higher medical insurance bills to cover the costs of those without insurance.”
While most of the debate about illegal immigration revolves about high-minded concepts of human dignity and compassion and the rule of law, there is a cost to unfettered illegal immigration that should not be ignored in this ongoing debate. — TM
Thank you, for your factual article. It is about time we look at all data and prove this cannot continue. These people are not valid asylum seekers.
We have more crime in this country, then their native countries. They are seeking financial perks. It was required that immigrants had seven years to learn the language and today they don’t even try. To the left, Please stop calling names and accept we are a nation of laws.
Thanks for writing this, I totally agree with you.
Blondie
You’re right on all except the amount of taxes they pay. It is very low because almost all work “off the books”. Paid in cash with no taxes. This allows them to also collect welfare. Hard to calculate but very few have car insurance so if something happens, “uninsured motorist” coverage pays, meaning us. The cost of supporting these people is staggering and make no mistake we are supporting them. Leaving a country where you have to work to support yourself to immigrate to a country that will support you seems like a no brainer. Maybe that is why many of the Democratic candidates support socialism. You do not have to do anything and someone else will go to work to support you.
Mike, that is pure BS. If they came here to do nothing, why did over 600 get rounded up for working at a chicken processing plant? Also, and I repeat myself, they are not collecting welfare. If you are here illegally, you can not collect anything. And now it is very clear what your President wants. He wants no more brown or black immigrants. He is a pure racist. Why do you idiots support him? And one more thing, the value that all immigrants add to the economy is in the trillions, not the amount that a racist think tank puts out.
What think tank came up with the “trillions” figure? I did not see a price increase or a shortage of chicken after the “raids.” They use other people’s social security number and work under that, a relative, a landlord, an employer – so there is no savings there. There is a shortage of Black people in the south? Ex offenders, and poor people have their jobs stolen by people hear illegally. Chicken plants had to raise wages to hire people after enforcement action. Immigration advocates are cheap labor pimps.