The Staggering Cost of Immigration

The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine released a report laying out its findings from a study on immigration’s impact on government expenditure. The findings of the study, which calculated the cost burden of both legal and illegal immigration, run counter to the oft repeated claims by Barack Obama and Democrats that the economic benefits of immigration far outweigh any negative cost.

The study used eight different scenarios and found that the immigration burden experienced by federal, state and local governments costs anywhere from $43 billion to $296 billion per year.

The report noted that in some of the scenarios the federal government’s revenue in taxes did outweigh spending for benefit programs, but those same scenarios also witnessed state and local losses surpassing the total amount of federal government revenue. In other words, an overall loss. The report stated, “Fiscal impacts vary strongly by level of government. States and localities bear the burden of funding educational benefits enjoyed by immigrant and native children.

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