The Cost of Immigration - Cost Of Illegal Immigration Tosouthwest Border Counties

According to the 2003 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics, September 2004), of the 931,557 deportable aliens located by Border Patrol agents in 2003, approximately 95% were Mexicans attempting to enter the United States over the southwest border. A significant portion of the Department of Homeland Security budget for Border Patrol activities was focused on the southwest border, particularly to implement electronic monitoring and airplane coverage of great open distances between towns or ports of entry.

The Front Line—Twenty-Four U.S. Counties on
the Border

In a study conducted for the United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition (USMBCC), researchers from the University of Texas at El Paso, New Mexico State University, and San Diego State University found that the twenty-four border counties along the U.S.–Mexico border spent about $108.2 million providing law enforcement, criminal justice, and emergency health-care services to illegal aliens apprehended in fiscal year 1999 (Illegal Immigrants in U.S./Mexico Border Counties, Washington, DC: U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition, February 2001).

Another study conducted by MGT of America for the USMBCC, Medical Emergency: Costs of Uncompensated Care in Southwest Border Counties (September 2002), analyzed the cost of providing emergency medical care to illegal immigrants who crossed the border for health care (including mothers ready to deliver babies) or who were injured in attempted border crossings. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (42 U.S.C. 1395 dd) requires hospitals and emergency personnel to screen, treat, and stabilize anyone who seeks emergency medical care regardless of income or immigration status.

This 2002 USMBCC report cited an American Hospital Association survey, which found that the hospitals in the twenty-four border counties incurred $832 million in uncompensated care in 2000. The report attributed about $190 million of uncompensated emergency care to undocumented immigrants. The USMBCC study also determined that if the twenty-four border counties were combined into one state, by comparison to the other forty-nine states it would have the lowest per capita income, the highest unemployment rate, the highest percentage of children living in poverty, and the highest percentage of residents without health insurance.

In July 2004 the Associated Press reported in two separate stories ("Texas to Get $47.5 Million in Funds for Uninsured," July 22, 2004, and "Arizona to Get Reimbursed for Illegal Immigrants' Hospital Care," July 23, 2004) that hospitals and other health-care facilities in Arizona and Texas would receive compensation for the care they provided to the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. Arizona facilities were to receive $42 million and Texas providers $47.5 million annually over four years as part of a $1 billion, four-year federal program administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The program was designed to help hospitals and other health-care providers across the United States recoup their estimated $1.45 billion losses for medical care to uninsured patients, many of whom are illegal immigrants. Of the $250 million to be disbursed for each of the four years to hospitals across the country, Arizona and Texas facilities would receive more than one-third (36%).

U.S. towns along the southwestern border also face the burden of identifying and burying the bodies of illegal immigrants who died while attempting to enter the United States. Between October 2003 and September 2004, 314 people died crossing the U.S.–Mexico border ("Cost of Illegal Immigration Seen in Graveyards," Associated Press, September 24, 2004). The average burial cost for an unclaimed body was reported to be $900 while the cost of investigating the death and identifying the body could be as high as $2,500. Imperial County, California, expected to pay $30,000 in 2004 for autopsies of bodies found along the border.

Border issues divide communities and politicians. In a story for the Philadelphia Inquirer ("'Neighborhood Watch' at the Nation's Borders," February 2, 2004), Dave Montgomery related: "Thousands of furious Arizonans complain that undocumented workers consume millions of dollars in public services and wrest jobs from U.S. citizens." Citizen "watchdog groups" threatened to patrol the borders in an effort to stem the flood of illegal immigrants crossing public as well as private property, while human rights activists described the self-appointed groups as "paramilitary vigilantes 'driven by hate."'

During the month of April 2005 an estimated 900 volunteers, working in eight-hour shifts, conducted stationary patrols of a twenty-three-mile stretch of border in Cochise County, Arizona. Although some volunteers came armed, their mission was simply to alert Border Patrol agents of border crossers. Organizers called the "Minute Man Project" a success. They reported that calls to Border Patrol agents resulted in arrests of 335 illegal immigrants and brought national attention to the problem of border control ("Minuteman Project Draws to Close in Arizona," Associated Press, April 30, 2005).

A 2004 study by the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that illegal immigration cost the state of Arizona $1.3 billion per year (The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Arizonans, Washington, DC, June 2004). The study considered the cost of education, health care, and incarceration for the illegal alien population. It also credited the estimated $257 million per year in taxes paid by illegal immigrants. FAIR published a similar study focusing on California (The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians, Washington, DC, November 2004). They concluded that the illegal alien population in California cost the state's taxpayers $10.5 billion. Taking into account the estimated $1.6 billion in taxes paid illegal immigrants, the total cost was approximately $9 billion. Another recent FAIR report analyzed the costs of illegal immigration on the state of Texas (The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Texans, Washington, DC, April 2005). The report estimated that the illegal population in Texas cost the state $4.7 billion, or $725 per Texas household headed by a native-born resident. The study asserted that $1 billion of that overall cost was offset by the taxes of these illegal immigrants.