Illegal Aliens a Drain, Report Says : INS Backed in Claiming Immigrants Costly to Government

A Texas economist has issued a report that backs up Immigration and Naturalization Service claims that illegal immigrants are a multibillion-dollar financial drain on the federal government and take thousands of jobs from American workers.

The research monograph, co-authored in part by a retired U.S. Border Patrol deputy chief, also asserts that most undocumented workers want either to become U.S. citizens or to remain permanently in the United States.

Other researchers have found in earlier studies that most illegal immigrants--a majority of whom are Mexicans--are temporary or cyclical migrants who come and go from this country. More recently, researchers have been saying that a greater number of migrants are staying longer.

Donald L. Huddle, a professor at Rice University in Houston, and his two co-authors dispute what they call the “windfall myth”--the argument put forth by several leading scholars that undocumented workers actually subsidize the economy by paying taxes without using tax-supported services.

Huddle estimates that, despite the taxes they pay, illegal workers cost the government $35 billion a year in unemployment and welfare payments, education and other services they collect, and in such payments and services to U.S. workers forced out of jobs.

He says that 65 U.S. workers are displaced for each 100 illegal immigrants working in the country. He reports that, based on U.S. Census figures and other data, there are 9 million illegal immigrants in the country, 5.5 million of them working.

Several other studies have concluded that undocumented workers take jobs Americans will not perform, and that they create other jobs by spending money in this country. Most experts say they do not know how many illegal immigrants are in the country, but estimates range from 2 million to 12 million.

Joseph Nalven, a San Diego County immigration expert, said he agrees that U.S. workers are displaced by illegal immigrants in the job pool but says he does not believe regional and job sector studies such as Huddle’s can be generalized to determine whether the immigrants present a drain on the U.S. economy.

“He is picking figures at his convenience to support his arguments like the devil citing from the Scriptures,” Nalven said. “I think there is a fiscal drag on the economy that has not been adequately recognized, but I think his numbers are inflated and it is a numbers

game that can be politically dangerous.”

Nalven said no one has successfully judged the number of illegal immigrants in the country.

Huddle presented the study in San Diego at a meeting of managers of the western region of the INS. He appeared late Thursday at a press conference calling for immigration reform with INS Regional Commissioner Harold Ezell and Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach), who introduced an immigration bill in Congress in February.

Lungren’s bill, similar to legislation sponsored last year by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.), would impose penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and would offer amnesty to illegal workers who can prove that they have lived in this country since a certain date. The Simpson-Mazzoli bill died last year after long and controversial debate over issues of discrimination and the effect of the illegal immigrants on the economy.

The 29-page study is co-authored by Arthur F. Corwin, a researcher on immigration policy, and Gordon J. MacDonald, a retired deputy chief of the Border Patrol. It is printed by the nonprofit American Immigration Control Foundation.

The findings are based on three surveys between 1981 and 1985 of about 2,600 workers in construction trades in the Houston-Galveston area.

Huddle says that 85% of illegal aliens want to remain in the United States permanently and that 70% of those wish to become citizens and want to bring their extended families to this country.

In one of their studies, Huddle said, they found that 38% of 200 illegal immigrants interviewed came from urban areas. He said that 53% of those interviewed earned more than $5 per hour and 12% earned more than $6 per hour.

He said many urbanized immigrants are semi-skilled and, therefore, present a sort of “brain drain” rather than a safety valve for the Mexican economy.

“Only 38% of the respondents were working as common laborers. The others were distributed among 14 trades,” the report says.

Citing other studies as well as his own, Huddle said in the report that “growing numbers of illegal workers come from urban backgrounds. These ‘urban’ workers are generally better-educated than the rural migrant, usually possess a specific occupational skill and seek out jobs in industry, construction and services. They tend to stay in the United States three times longer, more readily bring in family members and more frequently seek permanent residency.”

“Plainly we have in them a more competitive threat to U.S. urban workers,” the report says.

Illegal immigrants compete with “America’s most disadvantaged minorities,” relegating many of them to the ranks of permanently unemployed and forcing others to move to look for work, according to the report.

Immigrants get to jobs before Americans do because their networks are better and many employers prefer an illegal work force because it is cheaper for them, the report said.

The authors added, however, that Americans do not want 35% of the jobs held by illegal immigrants. “For the most part, U.S. workers and job applicants do not want to work as domestic servants nor as migrants in agriculture.”