Give us your tired, but at what cost?
Price of illegal immigration remains elusive
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| Numerous reports have sought to determine the cost of undocumented immigrants on services such as education and medical care. Few concrete answers have resulted. |
From Washington all the way to St. Charles County, politicians and immigrant rights advocates have traded barbs over how much illegal immigration is costing our cities, states and federal programs, including Social Security and welfare. Some advocates say illegal immigrants pay more taxes for these programs than most Americans realize.
But opponents, including state Sen. Scott Rupp, R-2nd District, of Wentzville, say the burden of paying for services for illegal immigrants is too heavy to allow."We want to make sure we're not providing benefits and sending tax dollars to those that are here illegally when they should be spent on hardworking Missouri families," said Rupp, who has proposed tighter laws for state spending on services to residents who live illegally in Missouri.
Under federal law, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal programs such as Medicare, Social Security and food stamps. In Missouri, they also are unable to receive help from the state's Medicaid program, subsidized child care, temporary cash assistance or housing assistance.
But as American citizens, children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States are in some cases eligible for food stamps and Medicaid. Opponents of illegal immigration say benefits for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants add up to a large financial burden for Americans.
The Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that supports tighter immigration restrictions, estimated that benefits for households headed by undocumented immigrants averaged $1,000 in 2001. According to a report from the center, those households received access to welfare through U.S.-born children.
Most government agencies have not put a price on the cost of their services for illegal immigrants. School and hospital officials say they don't ask about people's immigration status.
That leaves a broad swath of partisan estimates, mainly from political groups fighting for tighter immigration controls. One of those groups, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, argues that the United States spends $36 billion annually on secondary education, emergency room visits and incarceration of undocumented immigrants. A 2006 study by the Rand Corp. - a public policy think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif. - estimated total national expenditure at a much lower $1.1 billion.
State Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-19th District, of O'Fallon, also has made the case that American citizens "are being forced to pay for people who don't legally live in this country" through programs funded by tax dollars.
CHURCHES: COSTS OVERBLOWN
Some social service workers say they think reports that migrants are draining state and federal resources are overblown.
Most migrants, even ones who crossed the border illegally, don't ask for much financial help, said Miriam Mahan, executive director of Sts. Joachim and Ann Care Service in St. Peters.
"Because they are hardworking, they are great money managers and they pull together as a community, and then they don't need us anymore," Mahan said.
Mahan's organization helps undocumented immigrants through private grants, she said. Her service does not ask about clients' immigration status, but undocumented immigrants do seek help at Sts. Joachim and Ann, she said.
She said such immigrants come initially for food and for health screenings, as their children often are ill after an arduous journey.
Churches are common sources of support for immigrants in St. Charles County. St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church has a Mass in Spanish for the Hispanic community. Sister Raquel Ortez of St. Charles Borromeo said members of the immigrant community include undocumented workers who seek medical care from the church, because they do not have access to it elsewhere.
It appears from studies and local social service workers that undocumented immigrants in St. Louis do use language programs paid for with government funds.
Local service workers say undocumented immigrants use English language learning programs available through sources such as the Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis Inc., a volunteer-driven organization owned and operated by 30 public school districts in the St. Louis area.
The undocumented population in the St. Louis area is made up primarily of people of Latino, Polish and Indian descent, according to a 2006 study from Georgetown University in Washington.
Pendi Trujillo, a migrant recruiter with the Missouri Migrant Education and English Language Literacy Program of the Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis, gives workshops to school administrators that inform them about their responsibilities for immigrants. That includes not asking for Social Security numbers or trying to determine a student's legal status. She said the majority of students taking English as a second language classes are Hispanic. She also said that those who have visas, regardless of ethnicity, tend not to attend English courses.
TAXING THE SYSTEM?
Questions about the costs of illegal immigration often boil down to a central issue: Are illegal immigrants contributing as much to the government as the U.S. is spending on services for them?
Solid figures on the amount of taxes paid by illegal immigrants are hard to come by, as are reports on how much the government spends on services for people in the country illegally.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research group, has estimated that half of undocumented immigrants in the United States contribute payroll taxes.
In addition, undocumented immigrants pay sales tax and sometimes property tax. According to the Missouri Budget Project, which produced a report with the institute, undocumented immigrants contribute between $29 million and $57 million annually in taxes to the state. Between $4 million and $7 million comes from payroll withholdings, according to the study.
"The government knows these people are here, and we help them pay taxes," Ortez said. St. Charles Borromeo offers free tax preparation services.
Such taxes, according to the Missouri Budget Project report, contribute to Missouri Medicaid, subsidized child care, temporary cash and housing assistance. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all of these programs.
On the other side of the coin, a December 2007 report by the Congressional Budget Office estimated that taxes paid by undocumented immigrants may not offset the total cost of services they obtain.
Educating undocumented immigrants and their children costs states thousands each year, according to analysts.
According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center, one in six undocumented individuals is a child in kindergarten through 12th grade. The total cost to the state per pupil is estimated at $3,000, which would mean the cost to Missouri for educating children of undocumented workers falls between $17.5 million and $32.6 million, according to the center.
HEALTH CARE AT ISSUE
Beyond the costs of teaching children of undocumented immigrants their ABC's, anti- illegal immigration groups often cite the costs related to medical care for undocumented immigrants as a great burden on the American taxpayer. In a country whose health care costs per capita are well above the rest of the developed world, the debate over medical expenses related to illegal immigration rightly deserves attention.
According to a 2005 Urban Institute study funded by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, the number of noncitizens, including legal permanent residents, without health coverage grew by 1.2 million between 2000 and 2003 at a time when the number of native citizens without insurance grew by 3.6 million. The report concluded more than 40 percent of noncitizens are uninsured, and increased immigration between 1994 and 2003 did not contribute in large part to the numbers of uninsured in the United States.
A 2007 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, which had 42,044 participants and was conducted by UCLA and the California Department of Public Health, demonstrated that undocumented immigrants from Latin America were 50 percent less likely to use hospital emergency departments than U.S.-born Hispanics.
The 2007 Congressional Budget Office report suggests that costs related to health care for undocumented immigrants "account for a small percentage of spending by most state and local governments."
Dave Dillon, vice president of media relations for the Missouri Hospital Association, said no data exists on the amount hospitals spend on undocumented immigrants without insurance. He said there is no good mechanism for tracking such information.
"I haven't heard of any good studies that have articulated what the true cost of illegal immigrants is," Dillon said.
Dillon said lack of insurance is a national problem, and there is little concrete evidence to suggest undocumented immigrants are a drain on the medical system.
"We don't know, for one, how many are actually using the system," he said. "And if in fact they are and they don't have insurance, that doesn't mean they're not actually paying. They may in fact be paying cash or doing private pay."
Many social service workers say they will not turn their back on clients, no matter what their immigration status is.
"What we believe to be substandard is their American dream," Mahan says. "I'm the first one to tell you we need to protect our borders. But we're protecting our border by land when we've got people who are flying in from far, far away by air who have money to pay for the ticket. Most of the people who have come and done harm to the United States were people of means."
About this series
This is the third in a series of stories about illegal immigration in St. Charles County.
The context: In the wake of local immigration busts and as election season approaches, lawmakers have proposed crackdowns on undocumented immigrants. The Journal seeks answers on what life is like for immigrants living in St. Charles County illegally and how illegal immigration has affected the county.
Last week: Becoming a legal resident takes more than just waiting in line.
Today: Immigration's toll on social services difficult to quantify.
Later: Police and federal agents are working together to handle illegal immigration.
On the Web: Test your skills on a citizenship exam, hear an undocumented immigrant's story in her own words and weigh in with your comments at stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com.
