Debunking an unreliable study on impacts of illegal immigration
Category: Life

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Saturday, May 05, 2007


Debunking an unreliable study on impacts of illegal immigration
Category: News and Politics

In December 2006, the Texas Comptroller, Carole Strayhorn released a study on her estimates of how "undocumented immigrants" impacted the Texas economy.

She makes the absolutely unbelievable estimate that the 1.4 million "undocumented immigrants" in Texas contribute $17.7 billion to the state economy. She was very quick to mention that her report contradicted the other report done by the Federation for American Immigration Reform before. (1)



When I first found the report, I thought it would be an interesting read. But in the long run, I found it unconvincing. Even by reading her report, I couldn't see how she possibly could have come to the conclusion that illegal immigrants (or should I say "undocumented immigrants"?) could possibly contribute so much.

She spends some time criticizing FAIR's method of calculating the cost of illegal immigration. A lot of her critiques don't really hold water to me basically because none of them are at all evident in FAIR's report. Some of them are logical flaws.

As I read what she was saying, I found flaws in her analysis:

"In education, FAIR's report included the costs of legal children to undocumented parents. The inclusion of these children dramatically increased the costs reported. The comptroller's report focuses its attention on the costs directly attributed to undocumented persons." (2)

The flaw in her analysis is that it is actually perfectly legitimate to include the cost of native born children of illegal immigrants because (you could say) they are a product of the illegal immigrants themselves. Even though I understand where she's coming from, she ends up underestimating the cost of illegal immigration to the education system. The costs, in my opinion, should be counted even if they are indirect because they end up being the final result.

Economist, Edwin Rubestein says:

"Comptroller Strayhorn underestimates the cost of educating children of illegal immigrants by about $3.1 billion. This amount reflects her low-balling the costs of educating foreign-born students ($443 times 135,000) plus her much larger gaffe of ignoring the costs of educating U.S. born children of illegals ($7,528 times 395,000). Bottom line: After accounting for all K-12 expenses, the $420 million subsidy allegedly paid by illegal aliens to the state of Texas becomes a $2.7 billion subsidy from Texas taxpayers to the illegals." (3)

The Federation for American Immigration reform says that her "study's estimate of the illegal alien student population is artificially low, because it assumes that the illegal alien population has grown only at the rate of the state's overall population growth rather than at the much higher rate of estimated growth in the illegal alien population." (4)


Also she estimates that the 1.4 million illegal immigrants make up over 6% of the Texas population. The logical flaw in her document is that she says that "without the undocumented immigrant population, Texas' work force would decrease by 6.3%." (5)

What Strayhorn is saying would be logical assuming that nobody but illegals would take those jobs. But as I think I established very well on another blog, we don't need illegal labor.

See We don't need Illegal Workers


I've made it very clear that I don't buy into the notion that illegal immigrants do jobs Americans will not do because of statistics I cite in the link above which indicate that illegals only make up a small minority of those workers. --- It may be true that a lot of Americans wouldn't take them. But apparently enough (or more than enough) do.


FAIR notes that Strayhorn's report fails to take into account the $5.2 billion that illegal workers send out of the U.S. (6)


Dan Stein, the President of FAIR had this to say:

"Even if this study proved correctly that illegal aliens represent a net gain for the state…and we know for certain they do not…Texas would be forced to conclude that it is becoming dangerously reliant on cheap, illegal foreign labor to sustain its economy. That absurd reality should be an outrage to legal workers in Texas whose wages and living standards are in decline. While we commend and encourage Texas, or any state, to examine illegal alien costs, after extensive examination of their study, we strongly discourage other states from using their flawed methodology as a basis for further studies." (7)



It was reported that Strayhorn, that as she was running for Texas governor in 2006, she had been accused of manipulating data to demonize her opponent. (8) If this accusation is true, then that makes her report all the more less credible.


And now the final word. Strayhorn claims that her report is the first time any state did an analysis of the impact of illegal immigration. (9)


This claim is not true.


Earlier the same year on February 21, before Strayhorn's report came out, the State Auditor of Mississippi released a report about the economic impact of illegal immigration to the his state. According to this state government report, illegal immigrants are reported to cause a financial dept to the state economy, taking more than they contribute. (10)


Also, another state report came out on December 8, 2005 about the negative fiscal impact of illegal immigration on Minnesota. It concluded that illegal immigrants cost the state between $148-188 million. (11)


Carole Strayhorn's report has been debunked, apparently on the irrelevant details as well as the relevant.


SOURCES:

1. Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis of the impact to the state budget and economy, http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/undocumented/undocumented.pdf
2. Ibid
3. Illegal Immigration pays for them, not us, http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/070123_nd.htm
4. Recent Texas State Study of Illegal Alien Fiscal Costs: A First Effort with a Flawed Methodology Other States Should Not Use, http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_release12122006
5. Undocumented Immigrants in Texas (From first source)
6. Recent Texas State Study of Illegal Alien Fiscal Costs: A First Effort with a Flawed Methodology Other States Should Not Use. (From forth source)
7. Ibid
8. Texas report says illegal immigrants contributed $17 billion to state's economy last year, http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20061215-1413-immigrantcontributions.html
9. Undocumented Immigrants in Texas (From first source)
10. The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Mississippi: Costs and Population Trends, http://www.osa.state.ms.us/documents/performance/illegal-immigration.pdf
11. The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Minnesota: Costs and population trends, http://www.state.mn.us/mn/externalDocs/Administration/Report_The_Impact_of_Illegal_Immigration_on_Minnesota_120805035315_Illegal%20Immigration%20Brief%2026.pdf

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