What Illegal Immigration Costs You

Some have warned that legalizing millions of illegal immigrants – as President Obama is threatening to do by executive order – will be a huge financial burden this nation's families cannot afford.  In a new policy paper, Heritage researcher David Inserra offers some shocking numbers to buttress this warning:

The government services system is highly redistributive:  In 2010, in the whole US population,

• households with college-educated heads received an average of $24,839 in government benefits, while paying $54,089 in taxes (a net loss of $29,250 per household);
• households headed by persons without a high school degree received an average of $46,582 in government benefits, while paying $11,469 in taxes (a net benefit of $35,113 per household).

The typical unlawful immigrant has only a 10th grade education. Half of unlawful immigrant heads of households don’t have a high school degree, and another 25% have only a high school degree.  In 2010,

• the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services, while paying some $10,334 in taxes (a net benefit of $14,387 per household).

The typical unlawful immigrant is 34 years old. If granted amnesty,

• this individual would be eligible for Social Security, Obamacare, Medicare, and over 80 means-tested welfare programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families;
• this individual will receive government benefits for 50 years;
• over a lifetime, the up to 11.5 million former unlawful immigrants would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services, while paying only $3.1 trillion in taxes — creating a lifetime fiscal deficit of $6.3 trillion.

Inserra writes:

Under President Barack Obama, immigration laws are unilaterally ignored, waived, or changed … The result of such lawlessness is that the rule of law suffers and more illegal immigration is encouraged, imposing large financial and security costs on the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. immigration system is broken because of the executive branch’s decision not to faithfully execute existing immigration law.

Inserra outlines 10 steps the next president can take to fulfill his duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" — the first step in fixing the U.S. immigration system.

Cracks in the Liberal-Progressive Coalition

Further signs of disaffection within the liberal-progressive coalition:

1. Three urban Chicago black men make the case that the true oppressors of the black community are liberal black leaders:


2. Comedian Bill Maher seriously challenges Ben Affleck's thinking about the "religion of peace:"


3. In deeply blue-state Oregon, voters overwhelmingly rejected a referendum that would have granted driver's licenses to illegal immigrants -- a measure Hispanic leaders were counting on to bolster the legalization/amnesty effort. As Mickey Kaus points out, several senators who voted for or supported "Chuck Schumer's Senate 'Gang of 8' legalization + immigration increase bill" lost their bids: 

Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted for the Gang of 8 bill. He’s GONE.

Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina voted for the Gang of 8 bill. GONE.

Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado voted for the Gang of 8 bill. GONE

Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska voted for the Gang of 8 bill. Almost certainly GONE

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana voted for the Gang of 8 bill. She will probably be GONE after a January runoff.

Alison Grimes supported the Gang of 8 bill in Kentucky. DEFEATED

Michelle Nunn supported the Gang of 8 bill in Georgia. DEFEATED

Greg Orman supported the Gangof 8 bill in Kansas. DEFEATED

Bruce Braley supoorted the Gang of 8 bill in Iowa. DEFEATED

Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Warner of Virginia voted for the Gang of 8 bill and BARELY SURVIVED against longshot challengers.

Do you sense a pattern in there somewhere? Schumer would probably be chairman of the lucrative Banking Committee if he hadn’t pushed his amnesty bill.

Even if the press intentionally misses this message, the pols and their advisers won’t. Do you think that, say, Oregon’s Democratic Senator Ron Wyden will be eager to vote on the Son of Gang of 8 next year? He’s up in 2016. Yesterday, his state’s voters rejected a bill to provide drivers’ licenses to illegals — it lost by a margin of 68 to 32, with more votes cast against it than were cast in favor of any candidate.  It lost big in Democratic areas and lost in Republican areas. I don’t think Wyden wants to vote for another “comprehensive” bill.

Immigrant Children Flood Across U.S. Border

"Tens of thousands of children unaccompanied by parents or relatives are flooding across the southern U.S. border illegally," reports Reuters.

Now, Washington is trying to figure out how to pay for their food, housing and transportation once they are taken into custody.

The flow is expected to grow. The number of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrants who are under 18 will likely double in 2015 to nearly 130,000 and cost U.S. taxpayers $2 billion, up from $868 million this year, according to administration estimates.

The shortage of housing for these children, some as young as 3, has already become so acute that an emergency shelter at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, has been opened and can accommodate 1,000 of them, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in an interview with Reuters.

In a related editorial, Investor's Business Daily writes:

There are plenty of reasons for this migration wave — from the violence of the drug war in Central America to the leftist governments of the region, notably in El Salvador, that ensure low economic growth.

But there's a magnet effect coming from White House policymaking that's also pulling them north.
President Obama has talked up the DREAM Act of amnesty for young illegals and browbeaten Congress to pass it, using executive orders when it didn't. He's also let it be known he's not enforcing U.S. deportation laws.

Now we have a full-blown refugee crisis. They're convinced that amnesty is theirs if they just reach U.S. soil.

Solution to Illegal Immigration Problem

"The left intends to pummel American society into granting, out of pity, the right of anyone to come to America to live," writes Bruce Walker at American Thinker. But those who care about these people should look at why they are coming to the US and seek for them something better than submersion in the American underclass.

He argues that the US faces no tide of immigrants from Western Europe (or Canada, with whom we share one of the longest borders in the world) because those nations are more like America in terms of "religious tolerance, representative democracy, ordered liberty, and most of all, the rule of law..."

The American “immigration problem” of Hispanics is really a problem of misrule by many nations in Latin America.  Endemic government corruption, widespread gangsterism, and Marxist thuggery have kept lands that ought to be happy and prosperous into prisons from which millions of captive natives wish to flee.

The solution, then, is not for poor and desperate people to sneak into America and create a shadow life as illegals, and it is not to open America’s doors to let these people into our country. ...

What will end the pain of those who creep across our borders is not to change America, but to change the government, the politics, and the moral culture of those lands from which our illegal immigrants flee.  The very worst thing, of course, is to so flood America with illegal immigrants that this land of hope instead becomes another appendage in the empire of despair – yet that is what the left surely wants.

Marco Rubio's Illegal Immigration Reform Plan

Amnesty, warns Michelle Malkin, "throws law-abiders under the bus." She's right. It's hard to see any substantive difference between (a) government giving citizenship (amnesty) to foreigners illegally taking citizenship benefits (welfare, education) from your country, and (b) government giving the TV to a guy illegally taking it from your living room.  Amnesty is a bitter pill to swallow for most conservatives since it seems to reward thieves rather than stop them. Been there, done that in the 1980s, and all we got for it was 4 times more thieves 4 decades later.

Senator Marco Rubio argues for a somewhat different plan in his article, Applying Conservative Principles to Immigration. First he proposes changes to "legal" immigration that are long overdue, among them decreasing the percentage of family-based legal immigrants (low-skill, poorly educated) and greatly increasing the percentage of skills-based legal immigrants (high-skill, well-educated); using readily-available technology to modernize and ensure effective enforcement mechanisms (visa monitoring, interception and tracking); and implementing a legal, functional guest worker program that works on a seasonal basis for both American farmers and foreign agricultural workers. All are obviously sensible and reasonable measures.

Sen. Rubio then addresses the "illegal" problem:

First, those who have violated our immigration laws must come forward and undergo a background check. If they have committed a serious crime, they will be deported. If they have not, they will have two choices. They can avail themselves of the current law which requires them to return to their native country, wait ten years and then apply for a green card. Or if they decide to remain in the United States, they will do so under the equivalent of a non-immigrant work permit by paying a substantial fine and back taxes. If they choose the non-immigrant work visa, they will not qualify for any federal benefits, including ObamaCare.

Those who choose the non-immigrant work permit will not be allowed to apply for a green card for a substantial period of time. And they will not be allowed to apply until the enforcement mechanisms outlined above are in place...

Rubio goes on to address specific concerns raised by conservatives. No doubt there will be a lot of discussion in the coming months. Rubio's article is a good place to start.