Immigration Illusions Part Two: Rector and Richwine Rediscover Budget Deficits

A recent paper by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine  (“The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer”) went to a lot of unnecessary trouble to estimate that governments at all levels spent $54.5 billion more on services and benefits to households headed by unlawful immigrants (which includes children and spouses who are citizens) than was collected in taxes from them in 2010.  

It is hardly shocking to learn that federal, state, and local governments spent more on unlawful immigrants than they received in taxes, since governments spent more on nearly everyone than they received in taxes. That is what happens when governments run big budget deficits.  

Spending by federal state and local governments exceeded revenues by $1,342.6 billion in 2010—a conspicuously grander figure than the mere $54.5 billion Rector and Richwine attribute to unlawful immigration.  

For researchers to discover that unlawful immigrants, like most of us, did not pay enough taxes in 2010 to cover government spending was remarkably unenlightening. The paper is even less informative about the future, because (1) it ignores the fact that the Senate bill’s reduced restrictions on legal immigration would reduce the incentive for future illegal immigration, and (2) it ignores economic effects of a larger labor force in raising long-run economic growth.