$113 BILLION – The Annual Cost of Illegal Immigration to U.S. Taxpayers

$113 BILLION – The Annual Cost of Illegal Immigration to U.S. Taxpayers

May 8, 2017

Things to Know:

• Five Important Immigration Numbers You Need to Know
• New Pew Study Underscores Need for Merit-Based Immigration System
• Looking Ahead: The Next Big Waste of Public $$ for Illegal Aliens

Five Important Immigration Numbers You Need to Know

45 million – The size of the current immigrant population in the U.S.

78 million – The projected size of the U.S. immigrant population in 2065

7.5% – The percentage of immigrants chosen based on skills or talent.

24.5% – The percentage of the U.S. immigrant population here illegally.

$113 billion – The annual cost of illegal immigration to U.S. taxpayers.

New Pew Study Underscores Need for Merit-Based Immigration System

Nearly 30 percent of the nation’s legal immigrant population has less than a high school education, according to new study released by the Pew Foundation.

Fifty-seven percent of immigrants from Mexico – which continues to be the largest source of the U.S. immigrant population – and 49 percent of Central America immigrants are less likely to be high school graduates, compared to just 9 percent for their American counterparts.

The lack of education and tangible job skills has led to high levels of welfare participation, with more than half of immigrant-headed households in the U.S. in 2012 relying on at least one welfare program. That’s compared to 30 percent of households headed by native-born citizens, according to the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation.

The data, combined with an estimated projected increase of 30 million additional immigrants – accounting for 80 percent of U.S. population growth by 2065 – makes a solid case for the nation moving to a more skill-based immigration system. The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, sponsored by Senators Cotton (R-Ark.) and Perdue (R-Ga.), would move the nation toward a better balance between skill- and merit-based immigration and nuclear family immigration, while returning immigration levels to more historic levels, estimated at 539,000 per year, within the next decade.

The bill was well received by President Trump and is awaiting action in the Senate.

Looking Ahead: The Next Big Waste of Public $$ for Illegal Aliens

What are some of the things New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have in common? Crumbling infrastructure: Check. Failing schools: Check. Rising crime: Check. Budget shortfalls: Check.

Something else they have in common: They, like a number of other jurisdictions, are diverting scarce public monies that could be used to address myriad needs to funds dedicated to providing legal assistance to illegal aliens who face deportation. Just this week, Sacramento took steps to add itself to this list.

Deportation proceedings before immigration courts are civil, not criminal cases. And like all civil court matters, people who are fighting removal from the United States have no constitutional right to publicly funded representation. As such, local government officials in these jurisdictions are simply deciding on their own to use the taxpayers’ money to promote their own efforts to thwart immigration law enforcement.

At the same time, U.S. citizens or legal immigrants facing civil court matters, like foreclosures, evictions in tenant/landlord proceedings, child custody cases, and divorce proceedings, will receive no such public freebee.

So far, these diversions of scarce public monies to provide legal counsel for illegal aliens have flown under the radar of most residents in these cities. But as people catch wind of how their money is being spent – and where it’s not being spent – look for significant pushback even in places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

http://www.wcbm.com/2017/05/08/113-b...u-s-taxpayers/