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Illegal Immigrants Costly To States
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Published: December 19, 2007
WASHINGTON - State and local taxes paid by illegal immigrants fail to offset the cost of public services that state and local governments in Florida and elsewhere provide, a new study done for Congress says.
The same report says state and local officials can do little to avoid or minimize some of these costs because they are limited by rules governing federal programs, court decisions, and state laws or constitutional requirements.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report does not estimate how much more money, exactly, is spent in Florida or nationally on public services for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants than the amounts taken in through their tax dollars.
But it said these costs are concentrated in programs that make up a large percentage of total state spending, particularly in the areas of education, health care and law enforcement.
"The result is probably a modest negative impact on state and local budgets," Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag said.
By most estimates, spending for illegal immigrants accounted for less than 5 percent of total state and local spending for those services, the study said.
The study was done at the request of GOP Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa.
Previous studies have found that the fiscal effect of both legal and illegal immigrants is slightly positive for state and local governments - that the tax revenue they generate exceeds the cost of government services they use.
But this new study focuses strictly on the fiscal effect of illegal immigrants only.
The study's researchers acknowledged their work was difficult and imprecise. Differences in benefit programs and mixes of sales taxes, personal property taxes, real property taxes and income taxes vary greatly.
Meanwhile, advocates for immigrants complain that such studies produce merely snapshots in time - they don't account for immigrants who move up the socio-economic ladder over time and, therefore, eventually pay higher taxes.
"Over time, these same immigrants increase their earnings, succeed, marry, buy homes, create businesses and naturalize, like immigrants have done throughout the history of this country," said Angela Kelley, director of the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration law Foundation.
The Social Security Administration has concluded that illegal immigrants "account for a major portion" of the billions of dollars paid into the Social Security system under names or Social Security numbers that don't match administration records; payments from which immigrants cannot benefit while illegal.
And the Internal Revenue Service estimates that about 6 million illegal immigrants file individual income tax returns each year. Other studies have found more than half of the illegal immigrants in the nation pay income, Medicare and payroll taxes.
There was no immediate reaction from Florida's GOP Gov. Charlie Crist.
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, a Republican from Brooksville, said the study's findings should not come as any surprise.
"If you ask any county commissioner or mayor in my district, they could have told you this without the benefit of a CBO study," she said. "Illegal immigrants frequently use emergency room care without insurance, send their children to local schools and drive on Florida's highways, while paying few or no taxes to local municipalities that provide those services," she said.
The report says these costs on local and state governments are no longer limited to the handful of states such as Florida, Texas, California and New York that have been traditional first destinations for new immigrant populations.
In its report, the Congressional Budget Office makes no recommendations.
"It is unfortunate that Congress has been unable to address the growing problem of illegal immigration," said Grassley, in response to the study. "This report clearly shows that our state and local governments will pay the price of our continued inaction."
Reporter Billy House can be reached at bhouse@tampatrib.com or at (202) 662-7673.
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