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Illegal immigrants: A boon or a bane?
Research finds both contributions to economy and strains on resources


By JONATHAN HIGUERA
and DANIEL GONZALEZ
Gannett News Service

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One very common perception of undocumented immigrants' impact on the economy: They are a net drain. Mostly employed in low-wage, low-skill industries, they drive down wages and take jobs away from Americans. They strain public schools, choke hospital emergency rooms and sap welfare.

The perception is partly true.

But it's also true, according to research, that undocumented immigrants perform jobs that might go unfilled and are especially crucial to several key industries, including restaurants, tourism, landscaping and construction. Their willingness to accept low wages keeps prices down and profits up.

They spend at least hundreds of millions, and maybe billions, of dollars on everything from consumer goods and services to homes. Most pay taxes. And undocumented immigrants in the United States are paying billions of dollars into Social Security that they won't collect.

So what's the bottom line? Do undocumented immigrants contribute more than they take from the economy? The answer: It's hard to say.

“You could win the Nobel Prize if you could answer that question in a very precise way,� said Robert Grosse, a professor at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, in Glendale, Ariz.

The only thing that is clear is that undocumented immigrants have become an integral part of the economy, especially because an increasing number of them are families who have sunk roots into communities. As a result, any move to uproot them or change their status would have a profound impact on the economy both good and bad, depending on your perspective.

Measuring the impact of undocumented immigrants on the economy is difficult. Costs are easier to measure than the benefits. Research on illegal immigration is often colored by political agendas. And the data often don't capture aspects such as upward mobility, productivity and entrepreneurship.

The lines also get blurred when it comes to public assistance. U.S.-born children have a right to food stamps and other public assistance that their undocumented parents don't.

Of course, the overall cost of social services provided to undocumented immigrants can be significant, especially in a state like Arizona, where researchers estimate that 500,000 â€â€