March 10, 2008|By Kelly Brewington | Kelly Brewington,Sun reporter
As the number of illegal immigrants swells nationwide, state and local governments are grappling with a fiercely debated question: Are illegal immigrants a burden on or a benefit to local economies?
The answer: It depends on whom you ask.
States, demographers and interest groups have tried to quantify the fiscal costs versus the benefits of illegal immigration, but there's no consensus on the answers. Those concerned about illegal immigration conclude new arrivals are a drain on public services, citing the growth of the school-age population and the mounting ranks of the uninsured. Meanwhile, others contend that illegal immigrants swell state coffers by paying millions in taxes and fees without receiving many services available to legal residents.
In Maryland, where the illegal immigrant population is estimated at between 200,000 and 268,000, a legislative proposal to deny illegal immigrants any service not mandated by the federal government has drawn criticism from advocates who argue there's no evidence of abuse.
As a result, all sides of the debate are eager for more data.
"We've looked at studies across the country and we are convinced ... that immigrants are a benefit," said Kim Propeack, director of community organizing and political action for the immigrant-rights group CASA of Maryland. "But we are hungry for Maryland-specific information because we consistently confront these assumptions about the lack of contributions."
The group supports a bill sponsored by Sen. Richard Madaleno, a Montgomery County Democrat, that would examine legal and illegal immigration in Maryland.
"We need to look at the complexity of the immigration situation to understand exactly what sort of immigrant population we are seeing in Maryland," said Madaleno, adding that immigrant families often include foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally and children who are U.S. citizens.
Critics are confident the data will support the argument for curtailing services to illegal immigrants.
"This is an expense being borne by the citizens of Maryland," said House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell, a Southern Maryland Republican who sponsored the bill to cut off services. "We have limited resources and those resources should be quantified. The legislature has a right and a responsibility to know these costs."
Nationwide, each side picks the calculations that support its views, demographers said.
"You can pretty much predict what the results of the study are going to be by who is doing it," said Jeffrey S. Passel, a Pew Hispanic Center demographer who helped write a 2006 study on the tax contributions of immigrants in the Washington area. "There really is not an accepted methodology for assessing the costs in particular and the benefits in general."
Simply asking the question poses a philosophical debate, he said. "It's not the kind of question we ask of anybody else. No one asks: What is the benefit of society to having babies? So there are lots of ways to look at this."
In fact, determining how many illegal immigrants live in the United States is a mathematical puzzle. While the most-often cited estimate is 12 million, figures range from 7 million to 20 million.
"It's really easy when you don't know the number of illegal immigrants to come up with a wide range of the impact," said Randy Capps, a researcher at the nonpartisan Urban Institute in Washington.
Some studies include the citizen children of illegal immigrants in calculations, noting that they are entitled to public benefits such as welfare, food stamps and Medicaid, even when their illegal immigrant parents are not. These reports suggest that immigrants cost the government more in services than they contribute in taxes.
"If you want to make illegals look good in the calculation, you don't count the costs of their children and you ignore the population-based costs such as the wear and tear on roads and bridges," said Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that favors restricting immigration, both legal and illegal.
In a report last year, Camarota estimated that 39,000 illegal immigrants ages 5 to 17 are enrolled in Maryland public schools. National averages put the cost per pupil at $10,000, he said. Add the citizen children of illegal immigrants, and the figure rises to 57,000, or 6 percent of total enrollment, he said.
Other observers agree that education is the largest cost of illegal immigrants. But they argue that the issue of whether to educate children is not a simple price analysis, but a question of societal values. It's also the law. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states must educate illegal immigrants.
"It may be one thing when you are talking about health care and corrections, but when you talk about investing in childrens' education, you can make the case that the dollars you spend will contribute to the economy in the long run," said Capps, with the Urban Institute.
