New Study on Immigration Cites High Cost

Legal and illegal immigration are more costly for large states such as California than recently estimated by the Clinton Administration, according to a new study.

A report by the respected Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said Thursday that immigrants in 1992 produced a net national deficit of $29.1 billion, borne mainly by California and six other states. The center compared the cost of social services and education against taxes and fees paid by immigrants to come up with the deficit.

This estimate contrasts with a finding by the Urban Institute, in an Administration-commissioned study, that immigrants had in fact brought the United States a net benefit of $28.7 billion. However, the institute acknowledged that it costs California $1.28 billion annually to pay for the education of illegal immigrant children.

While adding fuel to the debate over illegal immigrants, the report by the generally conservative Center for Immigration Studies provided no cost estimate of California’s burden or that of any other individual state.

Statistics compiled by the White House-commissioned study showed California and six other states--Florida, Texas, New York, Illinois, Arizona and New Jersey--spending more money on federally mandated programs than was collected in taxes from the overwhelmingly young and poor population of illegal immigrants, which the study estimated at 3.4 million nationwide as of October, 1992.

But the center’s report said the Urban Institute’s estimate of about 15.1 million foreign-born residents--both legal and illegal--is “overly conservative.”

“It sticks closely to census numbers, but unlike the Census Bureau, is not prepared to acknowledge an undercount that is especially high in the populations targeted in these studies,” the report said.

The center estimated the total foreign-born population of the nation at 22 million in mid-1992, or about 7 million more than the institute’s figure. This gap makes it possible for some analysts to reduce costs associated with illegal immigrants by several billion dollars, the center said.

It said the institute also inflated tax revenues accruing from immigrant workers. The institute’s estimates that the immigrant population contributes $24.2 billion in Social Security taxes and $9.28 billion in unemployment taxes and other levies is about $6.8 billion too high, the center said.

David Simcox, who helped author the report, said California “clearly bears the heaviest burden of all the states. It has more illegal aliens than other states, and on the whole they tend to be less educated. In addition, California is very generous with its social services.”

George High, the center’s executive director, told a news briefing, “This study is helpful to states because it shows that immigrants, indeed, are costly.”

The report said that “until recently, conventional wisdom had it that immigrants in general were an economic boon to the host country. That wisdom has been challenged in lawsuits filed by California, Florida, Texas and other states, which effectively serve the federal government with a bill for hosting immigrants.”

“Those legal processes are founded on the premise that immigrants--both legal and illegal--and their offspring are costly to provide with education, medical coverage and other benefits of our extensive social safety net.”

California Gov. Pete Wilson, in a series of high-profile challenges to the Clinton Administration’s handling of illegal immigrants, has estimated that they cost the state $3.4 billion annually but pay only $739 million in taxes.

Wilson’s office has concluded that the average illegal immigrant household receives $7,760 in government services each year. To cover the costs of such services, the average household would have to earn $100,000, he has said.

Wilson has pushed for passage of Proposition 187, a November state ballot measure that would deny most government services to illegal immigrants.

Tracing the roots of the controversy, the report said:

“Stubborn high welfare dependency among refugees coming since the 1970s was recognized in the 1980s in congressional hearings and by the Department of Health and Human Services. But state governments did not make a major issue of it until the federal government began shifting much of the burden of public assistance to them in the late 1980s.”

But it complimented Los Angeles County for its attention to the situation, noting that “during the 1980s, the office of the county administrator regularly compiled the rising costs of such services (to immigrants) as indigent medical care, Aid to Families With Dependent Children and Medicaid to illegal aliens.”