New Study Challenges The Cost Of Illegal Immigration

The Bell Policy Center's new study contradicts the prevailing reports of the cost illegal immigration, arguing that illegal immigrants pay enough in taxes to provide as much as 70% of the burden they place on the system.

Defend Colorado Now, which opposes non-federally mandated state expenditures on illegal immigrants, suggests that the study is flawed, incomplete, or inapplicable to Colorado's situation. Their figures suggest that even if the tax income the Bell Policy Center asserts is true (close to $200 million), that would be less than 20% of the $1 billion in annual expenditures on services.

If illegal immigrants do not contribute at least 100% of the amount spent on them--and they don't according to either study--then they are at least a net drain on the resources of state and local governments, and that is hardly an argument for maintaining the status quo.