Immigration Effects -- Costs

...Analysis of the latest Census data indicates Texas’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers more than $4.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to more than $3.7 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden amounts to about $725 per Texas household headed by a native-born resident.

...Analysis of the latest Census data indicates that California's illegal immigrant population is costing the state's taxpayers more than $10.5 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to nearly $9 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden from those three areas of state expenditures amounts to about $1,183 per household headed by a native-born resident.

...Analysis of the latest Census data indicates that Arizona’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers about $1.3 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to about $1.3 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden borne by Arizonans amounts to more than $700 per household headed by a native-born resident.

...The cost of immigration to our society is enormous. The most recent estimate places the net cost of post-1969 immigrants at $61 billion in 2000 alone ($35 billion from legal immigrants and $26 billion from illegal immigrants).  This is after immigrants’ contribution in taxes has been subtracted. As high as the cost is now, the rising tide of immigration will lift it even higher in years to come. By the end of 2002, the annual net cost of immigration will have risen $66 billion.

(Information from Federation for American Immigration Reform)

Immigration Effects - Healthcare

...One of the frequent costs to U.S. taxpayers is delivery of babies to illegal alien mothers. A California study put the number of these anchor baby deliveries in the state in 1994 at 74,987, at a cost of $215 million. At that time, those births constituted 36 percent of all Medi-Cal births, and they have grown now to substantially more than half or the annual Medi-Cal budget. In 2003, 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospital’s maternity ward were anchor babies. Medical in 2003 had 760,000 illegal alien beneficiaries, up from 2002, when there were 470,000.

...As states cut their health care budgets to try to make ends meet, high rates of immigration are straining the health care system to the breaking point.

One out of every four uninsured people in the United States is an immigrant.

When the 3.5 million immigrants receiving insurance through publicly funded Medicaid are factored in, almost half of immigrants have either no insurance or have it provided to them at taxpayers' expense.

In some hospitals, as much as two-thirds of total operating costs are for uncompensated care for illegal aliens.

Although a national total of annual unreimbursed medical expenses for illegal aliens is not available, it is clear that those costs are more than one billion dollars, given estimates for Texas ($393 million), Los Angeles ($350 million), Florida ($40 million), and U.S.-Mexico border counties ($300 million).

The problem is on the rise: Immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived between 1994 and 1998 and their children accounted for 59 percent of the growth in the size of the uninsured population in the last ten years.

....Lack of insurance leads many immigrants to use hospital emergency departments—the most expensive source of health care—as their primary care provider. Emergency room visits increased by 20 percent in the last decade. The problem has become so out of control that some Mexican ambulance companies are now instructing their drivers to drive uninsured patients across the border to the United States, where they will receive free treatment.

(Information from Federation for American Immigration Reform)

Immigration Effects - Education

With states straining under gaping budget shortfalls, public schools throughout the country are facing some of the most significant decreases in state education funding in decades. In some states, drastic cuts mean lay-offs for teachers, larger class sizes, fewer textbooks, and eliminating sports, language programs, and after-school activities. Nearly two-thirds of the states have cut back or proposed reductions in support for child care and early childhood programs. Some are even shortening the school week from five days to four.

While these massive budget deficits cannot be attributed to any single source, the enormous impact of large-scale illegal immigration cannot be ignored. The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states $7.4 billion annually—enough to buy a computer for every junior high student nationwide.

With state budgets in crisis and children taking the hit, communities' limited tax dollars are being diverted to accommodate mass illegal immigration. In some states, the amount of money spent to educate illegal alien children accounts for a substantial portion of the state budget shortfall; in New Jersey, for instance, it accounts for 28 percent of the total state budget deficit.

(Information from Federation for American Immigration Reform)