Immigration is a hotly contested issue. Immigration supporters contend that immigrants contribute considerable sums of money to the public coffers and that, in an aging society, immigration is the only hope for a secure economic future. Immigration opponents argue that immigrants cost taxpayers far more than they contribute. George J. Borjas, an immigrant who left Cuba at age twelve and became a p…
To illustrate the principal fiscal benefit of immigrants, Stephen Moore, an economist at the libertarian think tank called the Cato Institute, explained that through a "pay-as-you-go mechanism" current workers, through their taxes, funded the previous generation's Medicare and Social Security benefits (A Fiscal Portrait of the Newest Americans, Washington, DC: National Immigra…
In an opinion article titled "Mexicans in the U.S. Send Billions Home—And It All Comes Back," for the Rocky Mountain News (February 19, 2005), Benjamin P. Gochman and Rutilio Martinez, of Consulting Group of the Americas LLC, stated that "[i]n 2004 Mexicans working in the U.S. sent back $16.4 billion to their families in Mexico. This number is expected to top $19.2 bill…
A recent contributor to immigration costs has been the stepped-up border security measures since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On October 18, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the fiscal year (FY) 2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act. The $40.2 billion budget as proposed by the president for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) represented a 10% increase in funding ove…
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 budge…
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