This week the Heritage Foundation released a 92-page study—which has received much attention in the conservative media—purporting to calculate that the cost of giving amnesty to the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants would be $6.3 trillion. But the study’s major flaw lies in assuming that the U.S.-born children of these immigrants will be as dependent on government benefits as their parents.
To calculate this figure, Heritage took the earnings and taxes paid by households by education level, weighted these by the proportion of illegal immigrants with these education levels, and adjusted for benefits denied to illegals. Because illegal immigrants have lower education levels and receive more benefits than they pay in taxes, the authors conclude that amnesty would be a net cost to our economy.
Note that illegal immigrants are barred from receiving direct government benefits, including Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, and workers’ compensation. Illegal immigrants are also ineligible to collect means-tested benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Unlawful immigrant households receive just $44 a year in direct government benefits, compared to $9,398 for lawful immigrants, and $11,617 for non-immigrants; and $4,497 in means-tested benefits, compared to $9,040 for lawful immigrants and $6,685 for non-immigrants.
So how do illegal immigrants receive any benefits at all? Answer: Their U.S.-born children are eligible to receive them. Heritage includes the cost of U.S.-born children of these immigrants as part of the cost of illegal immigration.
So how does Heritage’s analysis hold up? As I’ve argued before, immigration-leery conservatives are not addressing the real problem plaguing the country: the welfare state. All of the arguments Heritage makes constitute good arguments for why we should deport the most dependent among us.
But the main problem with the Heritage report is its failure to think dynamically. In particular, the authors seem to assume that illegal immigrants’ children will only obtain at the same education and employment levels as their parents.
Heritage’s report appears to assume that industrious, motivated parents who are fed up with our draconian immigration quotas and risked their lives to move here and make a better life for their families will settle for their children relying on food stamps forever. Successive generations of U.S. citizens consistently attain greater earnings than their parents. Why would we expect immigrants to be different?
Heritage’s estimate might be accurate—if illegal immigrants’ children never improved their station beyond that of their parents. But evidence suggests that their children are likely to become better-educated, earn more, and pay more in taxes.
As The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin notes, “[T]he flawed Heritage study has generated… a backlash from fiscal conservatives who cannot in good faith embrace the notion that fewer people make us richer or that every immigrant will be a poverty-stricken, ward of the state…” Immigration bill author Senator Marco Rubio observes, “[Heritage’s] argument is based on a single premise, which I think is flawed. That is, these people… will be poor for the rest of their lives in the U.S. Quite frankly, that’s not the immigration experience in the U.S. That’s certainly not my family’s experience …”
Heritage complains that Rubio’s bill hides the long-term costs of amnesty. But Heritage misses the long-term benefit hiding in plain sight: the future educational and earnings potential of generations of proud young American immigrants.
