The Conservative Case Against Enforcing Immigration Law

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

[A] right-leaning policy group is releasing a new report aimed at nudging the GOP back toward the center. The study, which the American Action Forum plans to publish later on Friday, tests a rather straightforward proposition frequently offered by opponents of comprehensive immigration reform: How much would it cost to "immediately and fully enforce current law"—that is, to deport all undocumented immigrants while preventing another wave of people from entering illegally?

The answer, researchers found, is quite a lot, both to taxpayers and the economy more broadly. Removing all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants, both forcibly and through Mitt Romney's infamous "self-deportation" policy, would take about 20 years and cost the government between $400 billion and $600 billion. The impact on the economy would be even larger, according to the study: Real GDP would drop by nearly $1.6 trillion and the policy would shave 5.7 percent off economic growth. Researchers Laura Collins and Ben Gitis also write that their estimates are conservative, since they do not include, for example, the cost of constructing new courts, prisons, and other buildings that might be needed to process and detain millions of immigrants.

The American Action Forum is not some fringe group; it is well-entrenched in the establishment camp. Holtz-Eakin is a leading Republican economist who advised John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008. In 2013, he released a paper arguing that comprehensive reform would boost economic growth and reduce long-term deficits by $2.5 trillion. The group's board includes Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary who helped lead President George W. Bush's immigration-reform push in 2006 and 2007. It also includes Elaine Chao, the labor secretary in the Bush administration and the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-case-against-enforcing-immigration-law-120000524.html

Yay! Some common sense returning to the issue - maybe.

[Darnell 8,478]

but those 'costs' are offset by usa citizen workers paying income tax on the jobs newly available after the illegal immigrants leave.

plus other bits in the food-chain - more monies to purchase cars, pay rent or mortgage, pay for gasoline for car, etc.

in a closed-economic system, removing the rats is useful.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

but those 'costs' are offset by usa citizen workers paying income tax on the jobs newly available after the illegal immigrants leave.

plus other bits in the food-chain - more monies to purchase cars, pay rent or mortgage, pay for gasoline for car, etc.

in a closed-economic system, removing the rats is useful.

However, if immigrant labor is depressing labor costs and therefore depressing the price we pay for labor intensive products, the increased labor costs, the primary driving force behind inflation, would drive up prices, and/or remove more unskilled and semi-skilled jobs from the market place through mechanization or outsourcing to locations outside the US. The agricultural industry would be hit hardest. You haven't seen any white folks looking for migrant worker jobs in California since the depression.