Illegal Immigrants Cost America $84 Billion per Year Because of Crime
May 1, 2008: This post is obsolete and wrong in places. For something better, go to:
http://rasmusen.org/t/2008/04/illegal-immigrants-cause-21-of-crime.html
How much does crime by illegal immigrants cost America each year? My estimate is $84 billion per year.
Crime costs America about $400 billion per year, of which about $167 billion per year is government spending– $72 billion on police, $57 billion on imprisonment, and $38 billion on courts. My blogpost Illegal Immigrants Cause 21% of Crime shows that by a conservative estimate, illegal immigrants cause 21% of crime. 21% of $400 billion is $84 billion, and 21% of $167 billion is $35 billion. (See these powerpoints for sources.)
This totally wipes out the gain from immigration generally estimated in the June 20, 2007 CEO report Immigration’s Economic Impact, which says immigration has a net benefit of $30 billion per year, including both legal and illegal immigrants. It says:
Immigrants have lower crime rates than natives. Among men aged 18 to 40, immigrants are much less likely to be incarcerated than natives. (Source: Butcher and Piehl)
I won’t go into a fullscale critique of Butcher and Piehl’s paper, Why Are Immigrants’ Incarceration Rates So Low? Evidence on Selective Immigration, Deterrence, and Deportation , which concludes that immigrants have lower crime rates than native- born Americans. Points to note, however, are:
1. They lump together legal and illegal immigrants.
2. They adjust for age and sex and education. If a lot of immigrants are young men aged 16 to 30 without high school degrees, it might well be that they commit crimes at no higher a rate than young American male high school dropouts, but the immigrants will still add a huge amount to crime in the United State, all out of proportion to their numbers. Moreover, they won’t “grow out of it”, if they go back to Mexico on reaching age 30– immigrants will still be spending their criminal years in the United States. Also, adjusting for education is misleading. An American who fails to get a high school degree is unusual. I would not be surprised if it is common for an illegal immigrant to fail to have gotten a high school degree. If so, that is comparing underclass Americans to typical immigrants.
Point (2) means that the Butcher-Piehl results are not useful for addressing the question of how expensive immigrants are. Rather, it says that increasing the number of foreign-born high school dropout young males wouldn’t increase the crime rate any more than increasing the number of their domestic equivalents– but either increase would increase crime a lot.
July 1st, 2007 at 8:02 pm
See also: The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave, Heather Mac Donald City Journal 2004.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
In calculating the percent of crime committed by illegal aliens, Rasmussen used the figure for “criminal aliens” which includes all aliens who are criminals including those that are in the country illegal.
A dishonest assessment
July 10th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
I’m from Kenosha, Wisconsin. A few weeks ago we had a deputy sheriff murdered by a Mr. Lopez. Yep, Mr. Lopez illegal as hell. He’s also criminal and druggy as hell. He shot deputy Fabiano during a trafic stop with a gun he had bought intending to murder a woman.
There is more than dollars involved in illegal alien crime.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:43 am
something has to be done about illegal immigrants. this is out of control. the numbers are way off, on the low side. government figures do not count children born to illegal immigrants in the united states, as illegal immigrants. they consider them us citizens, which they are not. there is no law that grants them citizenship simply by being born on u.s. soil. in fact there is exactly the opposite. the fourteenth amendment and 8 USCS 1401 grant citizenship only to those under the jurisdiction of the united states illegal immigrants are under the jurisdiction of their home country this went in front of the supreme court twice 83 US 36 and 112 US 94 we need to deport them all NO MORE EXCUSES
October 30th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
you are misinformed on your fact..in this ountry there is a birthright citizenship in the united states….re ad the following so you can educate yourself and others…..Under the currently accepted reading of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, any person born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is now automatically a U.S. citizen, regardless of the legal status or the citizenship of that individual’s mother or father. American Indian tribal members are not covered by the constitutional guarantee, but they were granted citizenship by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Children born to foreign diplomats or to hostile enemy forces or born on U.S. territory while it is under the control of a foreign power are not considered subject to U.S. jurisdiction and therefore are not citizens at birth. Throughout much of the history of the United States, the fundamental legal principle governing citizenship has been that birth within the territorial limits of the United States confers United States citizenship,[1] although the United States did not grant citizenship to all black former slaves until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was subsequently confirmed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Birthright citizenship has its roots in English common law. Calvin’s Case, 77 Eng. Rep. 377 (1608), was particularly important as it established that under English common law “a person’s status was vested at birth, and based upon place of birth–a person born within the king’s dominion owed allegiance to the sovereign, and in turn, was entitled to the king’s protection.”[2] This same principle was adopted by the newly formed United States, as stated by Supreme Court Justice Noah Haynes Swayne: “All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural- born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country…since as before the Revolution.” United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Cas. 785 (1866).
The modern world is divided up into nations with each nation, at least nominally, exercising control over its own territory and the people who reside within that territory. Among modern nations, citizenship at birth is conveyed in one or both of two ways; through Jus soli (the right of the soil or the land) meaning that one’s nationality is determined by the place of one’s birth; and/or through jus sanguinis (the right of blood) where nationality is determined by the nationality of one’s descent (parents). Birthright citizenship is the term used for Jus soli as it is applied under US law.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
This is cool.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:29 pm
esta problema no es bien… yo soy consado de todos este paleantaba… :(
April 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
stop illgal immigrant cuz my dad waz killed by a immi.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
#1- immigrants have lower crime rates than natives- even illegal immigrants.
#2 2005 labor in the U.S. statistics- 20% of cooks in the U.S. are ILLEGAL as well as 25% construction workers, 22% maids and housekeepers, 25% ground maintenance workers, 29% agricultural workers, 11% janitors, 22% constuction and maintenance. …these statistics does not include the legal immigrants.
#3 - 40% of he people who hold P.H.D’s in the united states are foreign born.
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- sadly but true immigrants do the dirty work in our country, we benefit from them as well because with out them working in agriculture for the small amount they recieve the cost of an apple would be tripple the amount, NOT TO MENTION 2008 IS THE YEAR ALL BABY BOOMERS FROM THE 1920′S RETIRE, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO RECIEVE FAKE SOCIAL SERCURITY CARDS PAY TAXES, BUT BECAUSE ITS FAKE THEY DO NOT RECIEVE ANY MONEY BACK AT THE END OF THE YEAR, THUS THEY PUT MONEY IN WHICH LARGE SUMS OF IT WILL BE CONTRIBUTED TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY OF ALL OUR RETIREES THIS YEAR BUT THEY DONT RECIEVE ANY BACK.
SOURCE=
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/immig/immigworkforce.htm– national confernce of state legislation.
===as a last note immigrants are people migrating to our country for personal reasons, they come here to work. they work so that they can send money back to their families to levitate them from poverty or to raise themselves up. they work and with the money they earn they buy AMERICAN PRODUCTS at wal-mart or target and send that stuff back to their families. So what they hell are all you people talking about??,, BY THE WAY—- look closely, most of the bumbs on our streets are white americans.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:50 am
The bums are the street are not only white americans, they are fat, well fed and mentally ill. (depression, psychotic, addicts or alcoholic are mental illnesses.) I wonder why so many are white Americans. Does this mean that minorities are less inclined to be mentally ill and more inclined to be concientious hard workers busily scrambling for work and opportunity to care for their families? And what about the “American family?” Where are these people when their members are on the street? What kind of family or culture would allow their members to live outside?
How about this? Look at ANY OTHER country in the world and observe the condition of homeless people and you will see hungry miserable filthy, skinny, sick, and desperate souls. Talk to ANYONE from ANY OTHER country about the prevalence of fat mentally ill homeless people in the U.S. and you might learn something about our “great family values.” Perhaps one might even begin to wonder about the “great American values” that yield the highest rates of mental illness, drug abuse and incarceration in the world. “Oh no! That would make you a traitor to the “”American Dream” or should I say “illusion?” “
August 14th, 2008 at 12:06 am
I want to know why immigrants from Europe, Russia, and other overseas people with violent convinctions are allowed to come to the US? I am very tired of hearing about people from Mexico and Cuba who are here to better their lives; very willing to work hard, not asking for hand outs seem to be the only “immigrants” that get talked about. Meanwhile I have heard of people we would consider “convicts” coming from overseas! Russian mafia people, IRA bombers, convicted felons that are here commiting crimes just like they did where they came from. To me these are the “illegal immigrants” we need to oust out of here! People coming here to “earn” a better life by working hard don’t scare me. They do not take advantage, break laws, or look for ways to “ruin” the American way of life. I hate that, just like many other topics, issues are voted on by people who are not affected by that issue, it doesn’t touch their life and they have not seen both sides. When here in California you see Mexicans who work very hard, are very respectful, and do not commit crimes. Most pay taxes for benefits they will never see; they would gladly posses drivers license, work permits, social security cards or any other mandated forms. Along bordertowns you see visble prejudices against Mexican people by whites. Just like the Academy Awards, you should not be allowed to vote on an issue until you can prove you have seen the whole story!
November 17th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Illegal immigrants need to be forced out of the country. They are detremental to society and the economy.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:54 am
if your gunna make such a critical statment such as, they are detremental to our society and the economy please back up that statment with facts and as for the guy who said that we should go and see how other people in other countries live, how miserable and filthy they are, well thats because they come from a society where theyre government is so throughly corrupt that there is no way for them to progress financially. They dont have the priviledge of having a free education, there is no minimum wage protecting them, jobs are incredibly hard to find, there is no welfare and food stamps or government housing. the reason why i always point out the white americans as being the majority of the bums and homeless on the streets is because they had every opportunity to become somebody in life. They were offered a free education, they are citizens and they come from a country (U.S.A) where they have every opportunity of becoming something more than a bum. It isnt hard to get a job it just depends weather u are picky or not. Has anyone ever seen a spanish person on the side of the road with a sign that sais “god bless i have no money please spare me some change”.