Illiegal Immigration Costs NY More Than $5 Billion a Year
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Illegal Immigration Costs New Yorkers More Than $5 Billion a Year Finds New Study by FAIR
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- While local politicians, like New
York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, go out of their way to shield illegal
aliens, the Empire State's taxpayers are stuck with a $5.1 billion a year
bill, finds a new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform
(FAIR). The $5.1 billion annual price tag associated with illegal
immigration, according to the report, The Costs of Illegal Immigration to
New Yorkers, covers the costs of only three basic state-provided services:
K-12 education, publicly funded health care, and incarceration of illegal
aliens who have committed other crimes after settling in New York. In 2005,
some 645,000 illegal aliens were estimated to live in New York.
Education represents the largest single component of New York's illegal
alien fiscal liability -- about $4.3 billion a year. Statewide, FAIR
estimates about 120,000 children are in the country illegally and an
additional 225,000 are children born here to illegal aliens. Combined,
these students represent 11.7 percent of public school kids. Publicly
funded health care for illegal aliens costs the state about $690 million a
year, while illegal aliens in state prisons drain another $165 million from
state coffers. The typical native-headed household in New York pays an
estimated $874 a year in taxes to cover the costs of just these three
programs, concludes the report.
"These latest estimates of the costs of illegal immigration tell a lot
about what is happening in the state and indicate what lies in store for
the country as a whole if this nation does not get serious about
controlling illegal immigration," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "The
New York City area has been steadily losing its middle class for decades,
as high costs, high taxes, failing schools and other factors have forced
middle income families to move elsewhere. At the same time, economic
development throughout the rest of the state has been hampered because
resources are siphoned off to support a growing dependent population
downstate. These phenomena have been happening for decades, but as illegal
immigration to the state has exploded, so too have the crippling costs."
The Costs of Illegal Immigration to New Yorkers follows up on a study
conducted by the Urban Institute in 1994, which limited its analysis to the
same three state funded program areas. That study did not include the cost
of educating the children born in this country to illegal aliens, but, if
it had, the estimated costs would have been about $1.9 billion a year.
FAIR's 2005 estimate of $5.1 billion means that the costs of illegal
immigration have more than doubled in just 11 years.
"Illegal immigration in New York, and the costs associated with it, are
spiraling out of control, creating a fiscal black hole that is swallowing
up the state's resources," said Stein. "New York, like a lot of other
states, is struggling with failing and overcrowded schools, a collapsing
public health care system, crumbling infrastructure and other serious
problems. At the same time, illegal immigration is taking a greater and
greater bite out of the state's budget every year.
"Unfortunately, for the most part, the state's leadership has responded
to the fiscally devastating influx of illegal immigrants by pandering to
the special interests that benefit from illegal immigration at the expense
of law- abiding, hard-working taxpayers," Stein concluded.
