The conversation surrounding illegal immigration
is deeply personal for many people -- it is emotionally-charged and politically
divisive. Debates often devolve into mud-slinging contests, and arguments morph
into feigned outrage, even violent protests. But from an economic perspective
the question is settled science: illegal aliens cost taxpayers
billions, impoverish American workers, and are completely unnecessary for
America’s economic success.
To begin with, illegal immigrants are expensive. According to the Federation
for American Immigration Reform’s 2017 report, illegal immigrants, and
their children, cost American taxpayers a net $116 billion annually -- roughly
$7,000 per alien annually. While high, this number is not an outlier: a recent
study by theHeritage
Foundation found that low-skilled immigrants (including those here
illegally) cost Americans trillions over the course of their
lifetimes, and a study from the National
Economics Editorial found that illegal immigration costs America over
$140 billion annually. As it stands, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on
American taxpayers.
Although border control is a federal responsibility, state and
local governments shoulder two-thirds of the costs associated with illegal
immigration. Unsurprisingly, this costs California more than any other
state: California
spends$30.3 billion on illegal aliens annually -- 17.7 percent of the state
budget. Texas is next: illegal immigration costs
the State of Texas $12.4 billion annually, or roughly 10 percent of
the state's budget. In third place is New York, which spends $7.4 billion on
illegal immigration.
Of course, the tax burden is only part of the story: illegal
immigration also distorts the labor market, hurting American workers. Ever hear
of the law of supply and demand? It is how the free market determines prices:
when demand increases, prices increase (more people bid-up the price);
conversely, when supply increases, prices decrease (less scarcity means less
urgency), and vice versa. Supply and demand underpins the price of everything
from gasoline, to apples, to the value of a person’s labor -- surgeons command
high prices because there is a limited supply of surgeons, whereas store clerks
make minimum wage because anyone can be a store clerk.
According to Pew
Research, illegal immigration has flooded America’s labor market with
at least 12 million new workers. This has dramatically, and rapidly increased
the labor supply and therefore decreased wages for American workers. Ample
evidence supports this claim. For example, before Hurricane Harvey, President
Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens had already caused wages for construction
workers to
rise by 30 percent in Texas (half of Texas’ construction workers were
illegal aliens). Likewise, businesses
in Maine were forced to hire American workers after the availability
of visas for temporary foreign workers were restricted. As a result,
unemployment decreased, wages increased, and working conditions improved in
order to attract American workers. Illegal labor has distorted America’s labor
markets, and hurt American workers in the process.
Finally, America’s economy will not collapse without easy access
to illegal labor.
The standard refrain can be summed up as: “we need illegals to do
the jobs Americans won’t do.” This is nonsense for two reasons. First, the
claim is predicated upon the false assumption that America’s
labor market is saturated and requires more workers to continue growing. This
could not be further from the truth: right now fewer that 150 million Americans
(out of 320 million) are employed, likewise there are 23
million Americans currently looking for work -- twice the number of
illegal aliens in the country. Even assuming that every illegal aliens was
employed, replacing them with American workers would still leave 11 million
Americans unemployed.
Second, the claim is undermined by actual labor statistics.
According to theBureau
of Labor Statistics, millions of Americans -- of all races -- currently
work as janitors, laborers, and agricultural workers. In fact, only four
percent of American agricultural workers are illegal aliens, according to a
report in the National
Review, putting to bed the myth that we would starve without
illegal laborers. Clearly Americans are willing to work any job, provided they
are compensated at fair market value -- this is not currently happening
precisely because many illegals work under-the-table.
Believe it or not, states without illegal immigrants, like Montana
or Ohio, are not economic backwaters with exorbitantly high costs of living
-- people in Idaho can still afford McDonald’s and Starbucks, they just pay
teenagers to work the drive-thrus. In fact, the cost of living in said states
is often cheaper, because their governments do not require high taxes to
subsidize legions of illegal aliens.
It is also worth mentioning that America is the only developed
nation, until very recently, that imports millions of illegal immigrants to
work in its service sector -- other rich nations like Japan and Canada, do not.
Yet despite this, the GDP
per capita of Japan has actually grown faster than America’s during
the same period. The same is true of Canada and Australia. If illegal
immigration is such an economic bonanza, why are Americans being left behind by
nations without this “advantage”?
University professors, Silicon Valley CEOs, and politicians are
not losing their jobs to illegals -- ordinary folk are. Illegal immigration is
a contentious issue, but it remains important to couch policy discussions in
facts -- not just abstract principles.
