The Cost of Illegal Immigration

We often hear how illegal immigrants supposedly contribute tax dollars to our federal and state government coffers. The reality is they cost much more in government services than they contribute in tax revenue. A new study commissioned by the Federation for American Immigration Reform shows illegal immigrants cost the federal, state, and local governments a total of $113 billion per year and they only contribute $13.4 billion in taxes. In other words, they are only paying 12 cents on the dollar for the government services they consume.

Some more highlights of the study:

Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level. The bulk of the costs — some $84.2 billion — are absorbed by state and local governments.
The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1,117. The fiscal impact per household varies considerably because the greatest share of the burden falls on state and local taxpayers whose burden depends on the size of the illegal alien population in that locality
Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion. Nearly all of those costs are absorbed by state and local governments.
At the federal level, about one-third of outlays are matched by tax collections from illegal aliens. At the state and local level, an average of less than 5 percent of the public costs associated with illegal immigration is recouped through taxes collected from illegal aliens.
Most illegal aliens do not pay income taxes. Among those who do, much of the revenues collected are refunded to the illegal aliens when they file tax returns. Many are also claiming tax credits resulting in payments from the U.S. Treasury.

If there are 11 million illegal immigrants living in the USA, and the estimated figures from the study are correct, that means the average illegal is consuming $10,272 in government services and paying only $1,218 in taxes. Why are our elected officials allowing this to happen?

And an even better question: Why are we allowing our elected officials to allow this to happen?