FAQ
FAQs on Illegal Immigration in New Jersey
Is illegal immigration bad for New Jersey?
From an economic point of view alone we see that the State of New Jersey spends $2.1 billion annually on the illegal immigrant population continue reading…
Don’t the taxes paid by illegal immigrants cover the cost of these services?
One could argue that illegal immigrants do pay taxes and therefore are not a burden to the other residents of New Jersey. However continue reading…
Doesn’t the income generated by working illegal immigrants help to bolster our economy?
Unfortunately, a great deal of the income generated from the work of illegal immigrants goes out of our State in the form of remittances continue reading…
But we are a nation of immigrants. Are you saying that today’s immigrants are different from those of previous generations?
Today’s immigrants are not fundamentally different from those immigrants of previous years when Emma Lazarus penned the words “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses” and saw them engraved on the Statue of Liberty continue reading…
Who is harmed the most by illegal immigration?
The people at the lowest socio-economic levels of our society are harmed the most by illegal immigration continue reading…
But what can individual states do about illegal immigration? Isn’t it solely a federal issue?
Individual states can do and are doing a great deal about illegal immigration. The E-Verify program is a powerful tool that can be used to stop illegal immigration continue reading…
What can I do about illegal immigration?
There is much that you can do about illegal immigration. The most important thing you can do is to educate yourself about the problem. Sign on to our NJCIC e-mail list and receive informative e-mails about illegal immigration with the focus on New Jerseycontinue reading…
Is illegal immigration bad for New Jersey?
From an economic point of view alone we see that the State of New Jersey spends $2.1 billion annually on the illegal immigrant population here. New Jersey has approximately 8.7 million residents of which approximately 500,000 are illegal immigrants. According to a 2007 study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), these nearly half a million illegal immigrants cost the State of New Jersey a total of $2.1 billion per year in the form of services consisting of education for the children of illegal immigrants, health care for their families, and incarceration for the criminal element in their community.
The cost of educating the children of illegal immigrants comprises the largest amount of money spent at $1.85 billion annually. This figure is based on documented costs of K through 12 education in New Jersey and the estimates of the size of the school age illegal immigrant population. Add to that $200 million for health care and $50 million for incarceration and the total comes to $2.1 billion spent annually by the State of New Jersey to maintain the illegal immigrant population in our state.
Click here to see the FAIR study
These estimates do not, however, take into account the “soft costs” to New Jersey from having this substantial illegal immigrant population within our state. These “soft costs” would include such things as social welfare benefits to American citizens and legal residents who have been displaced from their jobs by cheaper illegal immigrant workers, the costs of translation services in our courts, prisons, and health care facilities, the cost of English language instruction in our schools, etc. If all of these factors were taken into account the figure of $2.1 billion spent annually to maintain illegal immigrants in New Jersey would be even higher.
Don’t the taxes paid by illegal immigrants cover the cost of these services?
One could argue that illegal immigrants do pay taxes and therefore are not a burden to the other residents of New Jersey. However, even taking into account the sales, income, and property taxes that may be collected from the illegal immigrant population, estimated at $488 million, this still leaves a shortfall of $1.6 billion dollars paid for by the taxpayers of New Jersey each year to provide services to illegal immigrants in New Jersey.
Doesn’t the income generated by working illegal immigrants help to bolster our economy?
Unfortunately, a great deal of the income generated from the work of illegal immigrants goes out of our State in the form of remittances to families living in the immigrants’ home countries. The Inter-American Development Bank, a Latin American organization which monitors economic progress in Latin American countries, keeps track of money leaving the United States and going to Latin America. The total each year from New Jersey alone is over a billion dollars. This is money which could be used to bolster our own state’s economy and repair our decaying infrastructure.
Click here to see the IADB map showing money leaving the US
But we are a nation of immigrants. Are you saying that today’s immigrants are different from those of previous generations?
Today’s immigrants are not fundamentally different from those immigrants of previous years when Emma Lazarus penned the words “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses” and saw them engraved on the Statue of Liberty. The immigrants have not changed but the country they are coming to has. The problem, stated bluntly, is that we are importing the poor, tired, and huddled masses from the third world into what is now a first world welfare state. There is now an expectation that the state provide economic support for the poor, an expectation which did not exist when the waves of earlier immigrants disembarked on Ellis Island in the early years of the 20th century. It’s not that the immigrants of that generation were too proud or morally superior to accept handouts from the government. It’s simply that those handouts didn’t exist. They do now and, like it or not, it is unlikely that they are going to be abolished or even substantially reduced in the near future.
In 21st century America, allowing the unchecked immigration of millions of poor, uneducated, unskilled laborers into a modern welfare state such as ours is a recipe for disaster as these immigrants will pay little in taxes and use a disproportionately large amount of government services. It is not a matter of current illegal immigrants being somehow morally defective or having some mysterious inability to assimilate to our society in the way previous immigrants did. The problem is that immigrant families from the third world, with their documented higher birth rates, lower educational levels, and lower taxable income levels, are a huge burden on our economy. As Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies writes, “…mass immigration is almost perfectly designed to overwhelm modern America’s welfare system.”
Who is harmed the most by illegal immigration?
The people at the lowest socio-economic levels of our society are harmed the most by illegal immigration. The swelling of the labor market with unskilled and semi-skilled labor due to illegal immigration has wrecked havoc with America’s own working class.
In the last 2 decades of the last century, that is, between 1980 and 2000, illegal immigration brought into the US a 10% increase of workers and a 20% increase of workers who did not have the equivalent of a high school diploma. The result has been a flooding of the labor market with low-skilled workers. This reduces the bargaining power of workers compared to employers. The result is lower wages and less opportunity for advancement and this disproportionally affects the lowest socio-economic levels of our society.
In his book “Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American economy” Harvard economist George Borjas found that the immigration wave of the 1980’s and 1990’s caused a drop in the annual earnings of all categories of American workers, including a 3.6% drop for male college graduates which translates to $2600 a year and a 7.4% drop for male high school dropouts which translates to $1800 a year. This is $150 a month for a low skilled worker which is a substantial loss of income.
Mr. Borjas also compared the loss in wages among different ethnic groups. It is interesting that he found that the immigrant influx from 1980 to 2000 caused the annual wages of native born white workers to fall 3.5%, while those of black workers fell 4.5% and the wages of native born Hispanic workers fell 5%. So he found that American citizens of Hispanic descent were seeing their wages drop 5% due to the illegal immigration influx of 1980 to 2000. Borjas wrote “The adverse impact of immigration, therefore, is largest for the most disadvantaged native born communities.”
Click here to read more from George Borjas’ blog
But what can individual states do about illegal immigration? Isn’t it solely a federal issue?
Individual states can do and are doing a great deal about illegal immigration. The E-Verify program is a powerful tool that can be used to stop illegal immigration. E-Verify is a data base of names, ages, and social security numbers which is maintained by the federal government. Business owners can voluntarily subscribe to the program and then use the data base to make sure that people they hire are in the United States legally either as US citizens or legal residents.
Various states have passed laws mandating the use of E-Verify by employers in their state. NumbersUSA has even published a map showing states which have some form of E-Verify mandate in their state laws.
NumbersUSA Map of States Using E-Verify
Here in New Jersey Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose has introduced a bill into the Trenton Legislature, Bill A189, which would mandate E-Verify for New Jersey employers. If A189 was passed and enforced it would go a long way to decreasing illegal immigration to New Jersey.
What can I do about illegal immigration?
There is much that you can do about illegal immigration. The most important thing you can do is to educate yourself about the problem. Sign on to our NJCIC e-mail list and receive informative e-mails about illegal immigration with the focus on New Jersey. There are several national organizations that you can join such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, ALIPAC, and NumbersUSA among others. Links to these organizations are on our NJCIC home page and you can connect with them and get on their e-mail lists.
NJCIC periodically sends out “NJCIC ACTION ALERTS” via e-mail describing actions that you can take, usually by writing or telephoning your political leaders and letting them know your thoughts on illegal immigration.
NJCIC maintains a “TAKE ACTION NOW” page which allows you to sign e-mail petitions to politicians voicing your opinions on legislation affecting illegal immigration.
If you belong to a group, such as a Tea Party or a current events discussion group, and would like to have a speaker on illegal immigration come to your group, or sponsor a forum or debate on illegal immigration with NJCIC participation, just use the CONTACT button on our website to get in touch with us.
