Economists are finally speaking out to give us a figure of how much immigration is costing the US, and it is quite alarming. Their findings highlight not only the overall cost to the United States but also the cost to the average American-born worker. Due to America’s open borders, the US is the number one destination in the world for immigrants, and Mexico is the number one country for emigration. The problem is only getting worse. More than one-third of all immigrants to the United States have come within the past 30 years.
Let’s take a look at the cost of this immigration fiasco. A recent Columbia University study puts the net cost at $52 billion per year. That is the final total after considering the gain in taxes that immigrants bring in. That is a rather large increase from the National Research Council’s 1997 report which found an annual net cost of between $11 and $20 billion for immigrants. Harvard University economist George Borjas estimates that immigrants cost each native-born American man $1700 in average annual earnings. The immigrants economically help the upper class business owners who benefit from the cheaper labor which immigrants bring, while they cost the majority of Americans income. Mark Krikorian, an economist at the Center for Immigration Studies says that, “There is simply no economic reason to import foreign workers.” Many economists also say that the argument that immigrants only take jobs that americans don’t want is not valid. Wages for these jobs would increase and then be filled by Americans instead of immigrants. David Weinstein, coauthor of the Columbia study, says that, “Generally, people don’t want to hear these results.” I am sure that the press will be keeping these results from the American public.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor 22 July 2004