ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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Previous studies have found that violent and non-violent
crime rates among undocumented immigrants decreased
during the late-1990s and mid-2000s (Bailey & Hayes, 2006;
Butcher & Piehl, 2007; Nadler, 2008; Rumbaut & Ewing, 2007).
According to Rumbaut and Ewing (2007), even as the number
of undocumented immigrants in the United States doubled
during the late 1990s, the rates of violent and property crimes
decreased 34% and 26%, respectively. Using data from the
annual Federal Bureau of Investigation Unified Crime Reports,
Nadler (2008) compared the differences in total crime rates
between High Immigrant Jurisdictions (HIJs) (defined as the
19 states with the most resident immigrants) whose resident
populations include the highest proportion of immigrants and
highest percentage influx of immigrants, and non-HIJs in the
United States between 1999 and 2006. The study found that the
total crime rates decreased by a little more than 10% across the
nation (3808.1 per 100,000 residents in 2006 versus 4273.8 per
100,000 residents in 1999). Crime, both violent and non-violent,
decreased at a faster rate in the 19 HIJs than in the non-HIJs.
In 2006, the total crime rate in HIJs was lower than non-HIJs
(3807.1 per 100,000 residents versus 3809.4 per 100,000 residents).
Finally, the total crimes rate decreased from between
7 to 15 percent across all of the jurisdictions between 1999 and
2006. When examining the incarceration rate of undocumented
immigrants, researchers found that the rate is lower than that
for native-born citizens (Bailey & Hayes, 2006; Butcher & Piehl,
2007; Rumbaut & Ewing, 2007). Furthermore, there is evidence
that immigration does not increase crime rates and actually
reduces crime rates in urban areas (Reid, Weiss, Adelm)

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Although there are
costs associated with health care provision to undocumented
immigrants, due to their lower rates of use of health care services,
these expenditures account for only 1.5% of U.S. medical
costs (Okie, 2007) and the estimated tax burden per household
was only $11 per year for providing health care to undocumented
immigrants (Goldman, Smith, & Sood, 2006). While
some may argue that no tax dollars should go toward providing
services to a population who many believe should not
even be in the U.S., the $11 annual per household tax burden
is not the overwhelming financial burden that the media and
many politicians claim.

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There are economic costs and benefits of having undocumented
immigrants and their children living in the United
States. The CBO reported that on a federal level, revenues
generated by undocumented immigrants are greater than the
expense of providing services because undocumented immigrants
do not qualify for federal programs (CBO, 2007). In
addition to the additional revenue generated through taxes,
undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy in
other ways.
The financial solvency of the Social Security and Medicare
programs in the U.S. relies on payroll tax revenue (Segal, 2010).
Despite the public discourse to the contrary, the majority of
undocumented immigrants pay income taxes through the
use of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) or
through false Social Security numbers (National Council of La
Raza [NCLR], 2008; U.S. Chamber of Commerce, n.d.). As a
result, undocumented immigrants contribute over $7 billion
annually to Social Security and over $1.5 billion to Medicare
(NCLR, 2008).

Although some undocumented immigrants receive Social
Security and Medicare benefits, the majority do not receive
any benefits from those programs (NCLR, 2008; Sommers,
2010). Since false Social Security numbers are not appropriately
linked to an individual who can take advantage of
Social Security benefits, the majority of contributions to Social
Security from undocumented immigrants go into an earnings
suspense file. The Social Security Administration factors in the
over $7 billion annual contributions from undocumented immigrants
into the Social Security Administration's calculations
and projections for the solvency of Social Security (Porter, 2005;
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, n.d.). The retirement of the baby
boom generation will lead to increased expenditures for Social
Security (Abel, 2003) and additional tax revenue is needed to
provide Social Security benefits to current and future retirees.
Since undocumented immigrants are ineligible to receive government
services, it is estimated that undocumented immigrants
pay an average of $1,800 per household, per year more
to Social Security and Medicare than they utilize in services
(Camarota, 2004). Therefore, undocumented immigrants actually
contribute to the solvency of Social Security and Medicare
and help to provide services to current and future retirees.

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The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a new report this morning on immigrant welfare use. CIS found that immigrants use far more welfare than natives do. CIS’ methodology, parts of which are suspect, is what produced this result – as we’ve pointed out to CIS multiple times. They also omitted a lot of information that would make for a better comparison between immigrants and natives. Simply put, the CIS study does not compare apples to apples but rather apples to elephants.

The first issue is that CIS counts the welfare use of households, which includes many native-born American citizens, rather than individuals. There might be some good reasons to do this but the immigrant-headed household variable CIS uses is ambiguous, poorly defined, and less used in modern research for those reasons. To CIS’ credit they try to separate out households with children but didn’t separate out American-born spouses. There is debate largely over whether to count the American born children of immigrants as a welfare cost of immigration. If we should count them, shouldn’t we also count the welfare use of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren of immigrants? Such a way of counting would obviously produce a negative result but it would also not be informative.

Another problem with counting households rather than individuals is that immigrants and natives have different sized households. According to the American Community Survey, immigrant households have on average 3.37 people in them compared to 2.5 people in native-born households. All else remaining equal, we should expect higher welfare use in immigrant households just because they’re larger. CIS should have corrected for household size by focusing on individual welfare use – which is included in the SIPP.

The second issue with the CIS report is that it does not correct for income. Since means-tested welfare programs are designed for those with lower incomes, it makes sense to only compare use rates among those with lower incomes. It is not enlightening to statistically compare the welfare use rates of rich immigrants and Americans like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett to poorer immigrants and Americans as the CIS report does.

The interesting question is not whether poor people use more welfare than rich people but whether poor immigrants are more likely to use more welfare than poor natives. Our research found that poor immigrants are less likely to use welfare than poor natives. The CIS report isn’t very useful because it doesn’t correct for this.

The third issue with the CIS report is that they omitted the cash value of welfare benefits consumed by immigrant and native households. CIS only analyzed the use rates for each welfare program but they do not tell you how much welfare was actually consumed. For instance, the cash value for many welfare benefits are determined by the number of eligible members living in the household. If only half of the members of a household are eligible then the benefits are reduced. Furthermore, CIS does not report how long immigrant households are in these benefit programs compared to natives. Immigrants could be on these programs more frequently but for shorter periods of time and with fewer beneficiaries per household – which is roughly what we found.