The Rise of Unlawful Immigrants - Essay Example

? The Heritage Foundation report indicates that there were 3.44 millio0n households headed by “unlawful immigrants” in 2010 containing 12.7 million persons. How do unlawful immigrant households compare to lawful immigrant households and non-immigrant households and how many “lawful immigrant children” reside in these “unlawful households”? How does the study treat the “lawful immigrant children” when it assesses fiscal costs? The heritage foundation report indicates that half of the household heads of unlawful immigrants have less than high school degree while 25 percent of the household heads have a degree from high school. Generally typical unlawful immigrant household has only a 10th grade education. Consequently non-immigrants have low paying jobs hence pay less tax. On the other hand most house hold heads of lawful immigrants are well educated. Lawful immigrants headed by well-educated household tend to pay higher taxes that exceed the direct benefits they receive from the government. According to this report, lawful immigrants with college education heads generates a fiscal surplus of approximately$29250 which the government uses to finance the benefits of unlawful immigrants with less education who consequently contribute less taxes leaving the government with huge fiscal deficit. The benefits they receive exceed the taxes they pay to the government. Unlawful migrants unlike lawful migrants do not have access to social security, Medicare and other tested welfare services. However their children benefit from highly subsidized public education, medical benefits and welfare services offered by the government. Unlawful immigrant household heads also benefit from the use of sewers, roads, parks, police, fire and state security. These available resources get overburdened due to congestion effects hence leading to decline of quality of services to be offered to lawful migrants and non-immigrants. It’s assumed by analysts that nearly half of the unlawful immigrants do not pay income or FICA taxes because most of them work “off the books”. In 2010, the Pew Hispanic Centre estimated children residing in US with unlawful parents to be 5.5 million. Out of this, 4.5 million were born in the US while the remaining 1 million migrated with their parents to the US. They therefore qualify to be legal citizens and are entitled to state welfare and subsidized education. In average, unlawful immigrants have about 3.7 percent of persons in their households as compared to non-immigrant who have 2.7 persons in their households. This indicates that households of unlawful immigrants are larger than the household of non-immigrants. How has the relative education of unlawful immigrant households changed over time, and how does it compare to the education level of lawful immigrant and non-immigrant households? Data from the NELS indicate that the children of unlawful immigrant’s households will improve more than the educational levels of their parents. However 18 percent of these children are likely to drop out of school without even a high school degree while about 13 percent are likely to graduate with a college degree. The rest will either attain high qualification or some college training school. College graduates with degrees need to be improved to 30 percent to match with the levels of lawful immigrants and non-immigrants. In assessing the distribution of government benefits and costs, the study uses 6 categories of benefits/expenditures. Briefly describe what is in each category Government benefits and services are distributed into six categories as follows: Direct benefits - : This involves the cost of services offered to the citizens or the direct cash transfer. They include the costs of Medicare services, unemployment insurance, workers compensation and social security. It’s calculated on the per capita of the Medicare cost that the government spends on its citizens. Means-tested benefit - : These are welfare costs that are channeled to a particular group of households in society like the poor. They come in the form of food, housing, medical care and social services to the poor and the low income in society. According to heritage report, the US government spends about $835 billion on means –tested aid in a financial year. Public education - : These are the costs incurred by the government when providing primary, secondary, post-secondary and vocational education to the citizens. Sometimes the government may provide money to a citizen who later spends the money to improve on education. According to the report the government spends about $12300 on each pupil which totals to $758 billion each financial year. Population based services - : These costs are incurred while providing general services to the public and not to a particular individual. They include the costs of policing, health inspection, parks, sanitation, road and railway transport fire and general security to citizens. As the population of a certain community increases such services tend to increase. Therefore with the increase of immigrants more costs are incurred to provide population based services. Interest and Other Financial Obligations Relating to Past Government Activities - : Government may sometimes borrow some fund to supplement its budget deficit due to insufficient revenues from taxes. This accumulates the public debt and the interest attracted by this borrowing will be paid by subsequent governments. The expenditure class -interest and financial requirements relating to previous government actions thus comprises of interest and primary payments on government liability and expenses for government employee departure. According to the heritage foundation report, the entire government expenditure on these matters totaled $533.3 billion in financial year 2010. Pure Public Goods - : According to Paul Samuelson a public good is a good whose consumption leads to the common good of all people. The consumption of one individual of that good doesn’t lead to decrease of the consumption of the other individual. An example is natural air. Government clean public goods are uncommon. Some common examples include scientific research, spending on experts, defense, global affairs, and some environmental safeguard activities such as the conservation of threatened species. All of these roles commonly meet the principle that the welfares received by non-taxpayers do not consequence in a loss of usefulness for taxpayers. Government pure communal expenditures on some these utilities totaled $978 billion in the financial year 2010. In assessing the fiscal impact of “Earned citizenship”, how does the report categorize the phases? The report categorizes the fiscal impact of earned citizenship into four phases as follows: Phase 1: Current Law or Status Quo - : This is the economic status at the current time preceding amnesty. Phase 2: The Interim Phase - : This stage would comprise the time in which pardon receivers were in temporary status trailed by the leading five years of permissible lasting residence. Throughout the temporary phase, tax proceeds would shoot as earlier illegitimate immigrants initiated to work on the book then would keep on being restricted from getting means-tested well-being and perhaps Obama care health care supports. The general net economic cost of the previous unlawful immigrant inhabitants could be anticipated to decline a little bit throughout this period. The span and programmatic limits of the short-term phase would clearly vary in diverse bills, but 5 to 15 years would be distinctive. Phase 3: Full Implementation of Amnesty - : By the expiration of the temporary phase, the entire amnesty bills would provide the amnesty beneficiaries (former unauthorized immigrants) with full entitlement for more than 80 means-tested well-being programs as well as health care grants under the Reasonably priced Care Act (ACA, or Obama care). The resulting surge in expenditures would be significant. Phase 4: Retirement Years - : Under existing laws, unlawful immigrants aren’t entitled for Social Security and Medicare welfares. All amnesty regulation would permit beneficiaries of amnesty to acquire entitlement meant for these programs. What factors do you feel that the report has overstated, understated or ignored in conducting the study? The report has understated globalization while putting more emphasis on autonomy. With the increasing shrink of the world into a global village, immigration policies need to be flexible and in line with global requirements which are dynamic from time to time. The report has overstated education as a driver to increasing taxes but in real situations educated people utilize their knowledge and always find loopholes in the tax act to avoid paying more taxes. If the tax to be paid increases this kills the incentives of people to work hard hence low tax revenues to the government. In a free economy the forces of demand and supply determine the level of economic growth and the national output in an economy. This report does not factor in the different levels of economic cycles that affect to a large extent the amount of resources available to be mobilized to other sectors of the economy like in the provision of essential services. The report further assumes that in future, all loopholes that result into unlawful immigrants entering the US are sealed and these posses a great challenge. The US is seen by many as a land of many opportunities and immigrants will try all means possible to enter into the US now that they are going to abolish the green card. WORKS CITED Robert R. and Jason R., PhD. “The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer.” 2013. Read More