The Federation for American Immigration Reform has just released their study of The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration of United States Taxpayers.

Their report estimates the annual costs of illegal immigration at the federal, state and local level to be about $113 billion; nearly $29 billion at the federal level and $84.2 billion at the state and local level. The study also estimates tax collections from illegal alien workers, both those in the above-ground economy and those in the underground economy. Those receipts do not come close to the level of expenditures and, in any case, are misleading as an offset because over time unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers would replace illegal alien workers.

Key findings:
  • Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level. The bulk of the costs — some $84.2 billion — are absorbed by state and local governments.
  • The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native headed household of $1,117. The fiscal impact per household varies considerably because the greatest share of the burden falls on state and local taxpayers whose burden depends on the size of the illegal alien population in that locality.
  • Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion. Nearly all of those costs are absorbed by state and local governments.
  • At the federal level, about one-third of outlays are matched by tax collections from illegal aliens. At the state and local level, an average of less than 5 percent of the public costs associated with illegal immigration is recouped through taxes collected from illegal aliens.
  • Most illegal aliens do not pay income taxes. Among those who do, much of the revenues collected are refunded to the illegal aliens when they file tax returns. Many are also claiming tax credits resulting in payments from the U.S. Treasury.
See the report for the breakdown in expenditures in the areas of education, medical, law enforcement, and public assistance. It also shows the receipts from illegal aliens in terms of income, social security tax withheld, medicare taxes, excise taxes, employer (FUTA and income), property taxes, and sales tax.

The report seems pretty complete and sound in its analysis, erring on the side of conservative estimates of the number of underground workers and the size of their households. I think the biggest error in the report is that it estimates a population of 13 million illegal aliens in the US, which is extremely conservative. The pro-Hispanic group La Raza estimates there are 40 million, which would make the actual cost of illegal immigration 3 times the numbers shown in the report.
Continue reading at the original source →