The purpose of this blog post is to address the problem of
immigration. Conservative organizations and politicians have been blasting the
immigration reform bill that passed the senate. Most of the criticism are
coming from claims of amnesty as well as concerns over a possible spike in the
deficit as immigrants take advantage of government services. Also, Republicans
are for the most part worried that if illegal immigrants are granted
citizenship it will be the death of the Republican party.
One of the major organizations to come out swinging against
immigration reform is the Heritage Foundation. According to a study conducted
by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine Ph.D, immigration reform will add trillions
to the deficit[1].
In their research they advocate being very cautious about who and how many
people are to be let into the US due to the vast benefits citizens receive. According
to their empirical analysis, if the current illegal immigrants were legalized
it would add about $9.3 trillion to the deficit over a lifetime. When this
study was released, political commentators such as Glenn Beck[2]
and Rush Limbaugh[3]
have been blasting immigration reform.
On the other side of the debate is the Cato Institute. While
they are not fully behind the immigration reform bill, due to various flaws,
they do agree that reform is necessary and disagree with the Heritage
Foundation's findings. While these two organizations frequently agree on
economic issues, here there is virtually no agreement. The Cato Institute
responded to the Heritage report with harsh criticism. First was the critique
that the Heritage analysis didn't account for GDP increases. Then, they didn't conduct
any analysis on the immigration reform bill that was before the senate[4].
Not only does Cato disagree with Heritage's report, scholars at the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI), the American-Action Forum, and the Hudson Institute
also disagree with Heritage's methodology[5].
When Cato conducted their statistical analysis they found that by legalizing
immigrants GDP would increase by $1.5
trillion over ten years and that Heritage's proposal would reduce GDP by $2.6 trillion over ten years.
So, with these two policy think tanks in Washington, DC in
disagreement, what is the right path for the US? Both organizations mostly
follow the Austrian school of economics but come to very different conclusions.
In order for there to be any consensus there must be common ground first. Both
organizations understand that the current illegal's in the US have broken the
law. They have taken advantage of a broken system and are able to abuse
government benefits due to the US becoming a welfare state. However, what action is to be taken? Both
organizations are looking for the most economical way of dealing with this
problem. Are we to allow them the benefits of US citizenship, which costs money,
or do we deport or imprison them, which also costs a lot of money.
According to a GAO study, in 2009 the US spent $1.6 billion
on incarcerated illegal immigrants[6].
This clearly demonstrates that something needs to be done about immigration. Now,
this $1.6 billion is the cost to incarcerate approximately 55,000 illegal
immigrants. By doing a little math we can find that it cost around $29,000 to
incarcerate an illegal immigrant. Now, if we were to imprison all illegal
immigrants it would cost over $319 billion for one year to keep the estimated 11
million illegal immigrants in prison, in 2009 dollars. So, if you're looking
for an economical solution, this one isn't it. So if arresting and imprisoning
an illegal immigrant is off the table, what next.
Typically, deportation is another option that is expressed
by conservatives. Given that illegal immigrants broke the law it only stands to
reason that they don't deserve to be here and should be sent home. According to
CNS News it costs about $12,500 to arrest and deport an illegal immigrant[7].
If we then deported all the illegal immigrants in the US today it would cost $137.5
billion. This option already looks better than putting these individuals in
jail. The cost per person is less than half of what it costs to keep that
person in jail. While this option is better economically, it still costs
billions of dollars.
With the arrest or deport plans failing to be economically
beneficial to the United States, there must be other options to resolve this
problem. We cannot just arrest or deport all of the illegal immigrants in the
US because it would be fiscally irresponsible. Not to mention, if it was made
mandatory to deport all current illegal immigrants they would pursue all means necessary
to stay in the US, making it harder to identify them and deport them, costing
even more money. This issue is complex and will need a complicated solution.
With a problem so large we cannot just allow quick fixes. Amnesty isn't the
answer, but neither is a simple deportation program. Deportation is expensive
and amnesty was tried under the Reagan administration and the problem has only
gotten worse.
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