A celebratory report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says the federal government gained $37.5 billion, or 8.7%, from the resident population of 2.9 million refugees and asylum seekers in the 15 years ending in 2020.
The report also notes that imported refugees cost taxpayers who fund state and local governments $21.4 billion, or 7.3 percent.
The report calculated the cost by comparing $739 billion in taxes paid by immigrants and their families to $723.4 billion in government aid.
The report claims a razor-thin 2.1% profit because it excludes many other costs paid by taxpayers.
Excluded costs include migration’s damage to Americans’ wages, housing costs, civic stability, and economic productivity, the report said. of the title “The Fiscal Impact of Refugees and Asylees at the Federal, State, and Local Levels from 2005 to 2019.”
The report also excludes some benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security, ancillary costs, and the large future costs of relocation.
Hundreds of people gather in front of Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn apartment to protest immigrant detention facilities in New York City on July 2, 2019. (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
The report also concealed useful information about the most expensive and least expensive categories of immigrants, as well as regional gains and losses caused by additional taxes and expenditures.
“They want people to understand that refugees are good people,” said Jason Richwine, a statistician at the Center for Immigration Studies.
They’re not trying to educate people on the details. If you’re trying to produce unbiased reporting, that’s really what you should do. The truth is that higher-skilled and better-educated immigrants are net fiscal contributors, and lower-educated and lower-skilled immigrants are net fiscal drains. This isn’t just common sense, it’s also about seeing data all the time.
Federal officials are touting this distorted report to justify importing even more refugees and asylum seekers.
“Although this study focuses solely on government budget impacts, the findings suggest that refugees and asylum seekers are well integrated into the U.S. economy,” the report said, noting that Donald Trump He lamented that former President Trump’s immigration cuts “continue to cost the economy billions of dollars.” per year. “
“We hope this report will serve as an important reference for decision-makers at all levels of government regarding refugee resettlement,” said Department of Health Secretary Xavier Becerra. Said A statement from the government agency on February 15th said:
The officials who wrote the self-serving report eagerly promoted their tax-funded profits to the employees of tax-funded government agencies. One of the agency’s managers, Miranda Lynch-Smith, deputy assistant secretary for human services policy, said: Posted Her support on LinkedIn:
We had some really great conversations with refugee agency leaders, Secretary Becerra, and ACF. [Administration for Children and Families] We invite today’s leaders to speak about our report. Even though we welcome refugees and asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons, they bring cultural enrichment, enhance the vitality of local communities, and, as our report shows, bring net economic benefits to the United States. It is clear that the company is making a significant contribution. There are many reasons to do the right thing and welcome and support refugees and asylum seekers.
Pro-immigration activists are using the report to advocate for more immigration. “As this HHS study makes clear, refugees and asylum seekers can require upfront investment from governments at all levels, but that investment can quickly pay off.” claimed American Immigration Council.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra shakes hands with President Joe Biden after the Cancer Moonshot event in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, February 2, 2022 in Washington. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
Representatives of President Joe Biden directly imported There will be an additional 85,000 refugees in 2022 and 2023, including more than 6 million southern migrants, as well as low-skilled refugees from African countries such as the Republic of Congo.
Exclusions
Mr Richwine said the biggest costs excluded from the report were likely to be those for “congestion-prone public goods” such as police and emergency services, roads and parks. These costs increase as the local population grows.
Exclusion is ‘difficult to defend’ [because] Refugees definitely increase the cost of these services,” he said, adding:
The authors try to argue that: [extra] Refugees make up a very small proportion of a country’s population, so the costs are small, but refugees are not evenly distributed across the country, and congestion costs add up in communities with large numbers of refugees.
2016 Blue Ribbon Report on Immigration by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Said On page 266, we found that excluding “congestion” costs effectively cut the initial cost of migration in half.
A similar calculation shows that treating consumables (roads, police, etc.) as public goods with zero marginal cost adds $80,000 to the baseline NPV. [Net Present Value]totaling +$160,000 (National Research Council, 1997, p. 346).
Also in the HHS report excluded “Public goods related to military defense, foreign government assistance, and national security are excluded because individuals cannot be effectively excluded from such services.”
BREAKING: We just witnessed a mass release of undocumented immigrants from Border Patrol custody onto the streets at the San Diego (San Ysidro) trolley station.
I talked to some people from Peru, Colombia, and India. Some people go to Atlanta or Minneapolis because they want to work. pic.twitter.com/9kbilfigCm— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) February 23, 2024
The report also excludes predictable long-term debts, such as Social Security and Medicare, especially for immigrants who work only a few years before retirement. “As adults reach retirement age, government contributions generally increase based on their use of programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and income and payroll tax contributions decrease,” the report said. .
“If we really want to understand this properly, we need long-term analysis,” Richwine says. “They are upfront about the fact that this is static… [even though] This program is particularly generous to legal immigrants. [relatively] higher payments to you [taxes] For workers with short careers or low incomes. ”
The report ignores the long-term impact that refugee and migrant children have on national productivity and wealth, stating: To examine outcomes for refugees and asylum seekers and track broader economic impacts, secondary impacts or long-term costs. ”
The report downplays the large impact immigration has on Americans’ wages and housing, stating:
The report does not take into account the secondary economic effects of refugees and asylum seekers entering the labor market. For example, their participation in the U.S. workforce can affect the occupational structure, employment levels, and wages of marginalized populations, which in turn can affect the tax revenues collected by the government… Significant costs can be incurred for refugees and the areas where they live. Asylums make up a larger proportion of the population.
“This exclusion is defensible because second-order effects are very difficult to measure,” Richwine said.
The report also hid details about which country’s immigrant groups were burdening or benefiting, even though it accepted optimistic estimates about immigrant skill levels. compared as well as other investigations, Richwine said.
“These authors say that 29 percent of refugees who arrived within the past five years have a bachelor’s degree.” [See Table 5]But only 11 percent have a bachelor’s degree upon arrival, according to ASR. ” [See Table 12]He said.
“All we need to do is look at education levels in surveys such as the annual refugee survey. show “A very large proportion are actually uneducated…That’s not the kind of group that could bring a net financial benefit, no matter how hard they work,” he said. .
The distinction between these groups was noted in a February 2024 report by Boston Indicators. of the title “Global Greater Boston” published a graph showing how immigrants from different countries tend to work at different skill levels.
Figure: Migration Studies Initiative/Source: ACS 2021 5-Year Sample
The Boston report said some immigrants, primarily Indian and Chinese, are being imported for skilled jobs through H-1B and other white-collar visa programs, adding: Ta.
Immigrants are present in virtually every type of workplace in the Boston metropolitan area and are far more likely than U.S.-born workers to hold low-wage jobs with median wages less than $49,000. Many of these are in the service sector, and immigrants make up a large proportion of all workers in these sectors. For example, immigrants make up 78 percent of maids and housekeepers, 51 percent of cooks, and 51 percent of janitors and building cleaners, making them disproportionately more than 25 percent of the workforce.
The HHS report sidesteps the issue with this group, stating:
The current study also does not allow us to estimate differential fiscal impacts for refugee subgroups. The financial impact for specific refugee groups may vary depending on key characteristics such as length of stay in the United States, history of violence or trauma prior to resettlement, employment in the home country, English proficiency, education, and age at entry. expensive. Deeper and more precise research could explain the need for medical assistance and counseling, or the human capital that refugees possessed upon arrival, and the associated impact on financial costs and benefits.
Although an influx of low-skilled immigrants lowers a country’s per capita wages and skill levels, it still benefits governments and businesses by expanding the country’s population and economy.
Richwine said government agencies benefit from importing immigrants who rely on government aid to thrive in a high-tech society. “There is no question that low-skilled individuals provide more customers for the welfare state, whether they are working or not. There is no doubt about this.”
Investors and CEOs benefit from the influx of people who want to work, spend, and rent. ” [2023] The surge in immigration has significantly contributed to easing labor shortages, slowing inflation and boosting consumer demand,” said Ruchi Sharma, an Indian-born investor who runs the international arm of the $65 billion Rockefeller Foundation. said. “Net migration to the United States accounts for about a quarter of the increase in consumer spending, which was a healthy 2.7% last year,” he said. I have written In an article from January 14, 2024 financial times.
Still, the report’s recognition of direct costs to taxpayers would be helpful in correcting many problems. media Articles and business support report and the study It would spend only the taxes paid by immigrants and ignore costs.
Extract migration
Since at least 1990, the federal government has relied on extractive immigration to grow the economy, allowing investors to move high-wage manufacturing to low-wage countries.
Immigration policies rob poor countries of vast human resources.Additional workers, consumers and renters push It drives up stock prices by lowering American wages, subsidizing low-productivity companies, raising rents, and inflating real estate prices.
This economic policy has deprived many American-born people of careers in various business fields, reduced the productivity and political influence of American-born people, reduced high-tech innovation, and disrupted civic life. I became free. solidarityAnd they allowed government officials and progressives to ignore the policy. rising Mortality rate of abandoned people American.
Policies like colonialism have killed hundreds of Americans and thousands of immigrants, including taxpayer-funded jungle dwellers. trail Passing through the Darién Canyon in Panama.
