Cost vs. Benefits

You've all heard the claim that illegal immigrants keep prices low. On some items (like certain crops) that's true. But what about the other costs associated with illegal immigrants?

Each one of their children cost the taxpayer's thousands of dollars when born, because hospitals cannot refuse treatment of anyone, and have to inflate the cost of everyone else's bill to help pay for the bills. This is one of the reasons American health care costs are increasing each year: to pay for those who don't pay their own bills. Hispanics births in this nation are already 50% of all births, and many of those are children of illegals.

Then each of those children cost taxpayers over $6,000 per year when they go to public school. Those bills are added to your property taxes.

Roughly 20% of the illegals apprehended by INS along the border have criminal records. About 29% (almost a third) of the US prison population are non-citizens. Each of those criminals cost taxpayers between $25,000 and $35,000 to house in prison per year... not to mention the pain and suffering they caused their innocent victims before going to jail.

An estimated $20,000,000,000 (that's billion, not million) American dollars are siphoned off of the American economy and sent to Mexico by illegals every year. It's Mexico's second largest source of income (after oil). No wonder they won't do anything to stop the flow of illegals...

There is no way to estimate the cost and damage caused by the steady stream of illegal drugs that cross the border along with the illegal immigrants. The high cost of the crimes they inspire, the hospital costs of victims, and the law enforcement costs are clearly in the billions per year.

The welfare benefits and other low income government handouts are estimated to run about $10 billion a year.

Then there's the lost tax revenue from illegals that do not pay any federal income taxes, no state income taxes, and often do not pay other payroll taxes as well. No figures are currently available on this cost, but it's certainly high.

Also missing is any estimates in lost wages from American workers who have been replaced with illegal immigrants, especially in the construction industry. These are otherwise high wage jobs for low educated workers (especially blacks and unskilled whites) who cannot find otherwise common jobs and often turn to crime or government handouts to get by. Instead of paying taxes, these citizens end up costing other taxpayers plenty.

So do the math yourself. Does saving a nickel on a head of lettuce pay for the tens of billions of dollars of taxes wasted on illegal immigrants? You save a few pennies at the store, but spend hundreds and thousands per year in additional taxes.

And just when you thought it couldn't get more ridiculous, the Senate (led by John MaCain) voted to give illegals full Social Security benefits! That's billions and billions of dollars more of a drain on a system that is already going bankrupt, and all because illegals stole Social Security numbers as part of their identity scam, but politicians are too scared to stand up to a large potential voting block. Incredible!

Investing a one-time cost of $4 billion on a high tech, three layered fence along our border may seem expensive at first, but when looked at from a yearly cost/ benefit standpoint, it would pay for itself in the first six months of completion. (Keep in mind, however, that serious enforcement against employers of illegal immigrants is equally important.)

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