Ted Kennedy Gets It Backward on Economic Drain of Illegal Aliens
By Eric Francke, Posted 4-27-2006
       At a hearing on illegal immigration on Tuesday, Sen. Ted Kennedy demonstrated yet again why he and his immigration bill need to be thrown out. The venerable Senator seems to have no idea what he is talking about.
       In his apologetic on why illegal aliens deserve amnesty, he stated: “The overwhelming majority of immigrants – even those here illegally – work, pay taxes, and pay in to Social Security. In fact, undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $35 billion in taxes each year. One study reports that the average immigrant family pays $80,000 more in taxes than they consume in services.”
       Of course, it is debatable that the “overwhelming majority” of illegal aliens pay into social security. How about the migrant workers, construction laborers, housekeepers and nannies that are all paid under the table?
       Looking at the numbers Kennedy provides, one quickly realizes that everything he says is suspect. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies last year found that households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes. That would be a net fiscal deficit of $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household per year.
       We imagine that a senior senator knows that the majority of illegal immigrants don’t even have the equivalent of a high school diploma and work in low-paying jobs around the poverty levels. The Senator claims that each household pays into the tax system $80,000 more than the services they consume? As a matter of fact, presuming that we could find a household of illegal aliens that didn’t consume ANY services ( Medicaid, foodstamps, free public schooling for their children) do we realistically think we could find a single family that has paid in $80,000?