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Costs
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The National Research Council has estimated that the net fiscal cost of immigration ranges from $11 billion to $22 billion per year, with most government expenditures on immigrants coming from state and local coffers, while most taxes paid by immigrants go to the federal treasury. The net deficit is caused by a low level of tax payments by immigrants, because they are disproportionately low-skilled and thus earn low wages, and a higher rate of consumption of government services, both because of their relative poverty and their higher fertility.

This is especially true of illegal immigration. Even though illegal aliens make little use of welfare, from which they are generally barred, the costs of illegal immigration in terms of government expenditures for education, criminal justice, and emergency medical care are significant. California has estimated that the net cost to the state of providing government services to illegal immigrants approached $3 billion during a single fiscal year. The fact that states must bear the cost of federal failure turns illegal immigration, in effect, into one of the largest unfunded federal mandates.

Publications:

United States Technological Superiority and the Losses From Migration
by Donald R. Davis and David E. Weinstein
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder. February 2005

Social Security 'Totalization': Examining a Lopsided Agreement with Mexico
by Marti Dinerstein

Center Paper 23: The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget
by Steven A. Camarota, August 2004

Immigration in a Time of Recession: An Examination of Trends Since 2000
by Steven A. Camarota
November 2003
.pdf version

Back Where We Started: An Examination of Trends in Immigrant Welfare Use Since Welfare Reform
by Steven A. Camarota
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, March 2003
pdf version
Panel Discussion Transcript

The Impact of Welfare Reform on Immigrant Welfare Use
by George Borjas
Center for Immigration Studies, March 2002
pdf version
Panel Discussion Transcript

Stamp Act: Immigrants Si, Immigration No
by Mark Krikorian
National Review Online, January 15, 2002

Public Charge Doctrine: A Fundamental Principle of American Immigration Policy
by James R. Edwards, Jr.
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, May 2001
pdf version

Distorted Incentives: The United States Pays the University of California Twice as Much to Educate Foreign Graduate Students as American Ones
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, February 2000
pdf version

The Impact of New Americans: A Review and Analysis of the National Research Council's The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration
by Steven A. Camarota and Leon Bouvier
Center for Immigration Studies Report, December 1999

Immigration and California Communities
by William A.V. Clark, UCLA
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, February 1999

Measuring the Fallout: The Cost of the IRCA Amnesty After 10 Years
by David Simcox
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, May 1997

Immigration and Welfare: The Devil Is in the Details
by Mark Krikorian
p. 13 in Immigration Review no. 28, Spring 1997

The Costs of Immigration: Assessing a Conflicted Issue
by David Simcox, John Martin, and Rosemary Jenks
Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, September 1994 (summary only)
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