Costs of illegal aliens in Florida
Most Floridians are not aware that our state now ranks third nationally in the number of illegal aliens residing here. Florida's illegal population is eclipsed only by those of California and Texas, and the cold hard fact is that there is a staggering annual fiscal burden which we must pay.
Over the past decade, Florida taxpayers have been required to assume the onus in governmental outlays because of the rapidly-rising number of illegal aliens living in the state. Unless measures are taken to stem the flow of illegal immigration, these costs may be expected to escalate. But exactly what costs are we concerned with and how do they impact the average Floridian?
Population and costs
Population. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Florida's illegal alien population in 2005 stood at approximately 630,000 persons. However, the Pew Hispanic Center in 2004 placed the illegal alien population in Florida at 850,000. This is in line with a 2002 study conducted by the Migration Policy Institute that estimated the state's illegal alien population at 700,000.
Any of these figures illustrate an astounding illegal population in residence, approximating five percent of Florida's 17 million residents.
It should also be noted that these figures represent a lower number than the actual illegal population in Florida, perhaps several hundred thousands lower. This is because under the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996, Cubans who have entered the country illegally by boat have been paroled into the country in an ongoing ten-year process, and granted legal residence after one year.
Costs. FAIR's October 2005 study (PDF document), utilizing U.S. Bureau of the Census data, indicates Florida's illegal alien population is costing state taxpayers more than $1.7 billion dollars per year for education, medical care, and incarceration. This is a sizable slice of the pie when considering the fact that the state's total 2005-2006 budget was $64.7 billion.
Before proceeding further, the following must be considered. The FAIR study researched fiscal costs and tax payments to the state associated with illegal immigration, but did not analyze the goods and services produced by illegal alien workers. Such costs, including unemployment compensation, welfare outlays, lost taxes, etc., are certainly real but difficult to quantify.
This is understandable because by its very nature, the study of illegal immigrants cannot be absolutely quantified, and even quantifiable costs must be educated estimates. Nevertheless, the annual fiscal burden amounts to about $313 per Florida household headed by a native-born resident. This figure does not represent those foreign-born Floridians who are residents, U.S. citizens, or legal aliens.
Where does the money go?
The greatest outlays of the nearly two billion dollars in costs incurred by Florida taxpayers each year fall into three categories:
Education. Utilizing documented costs of K-12 schooling, Floridians spend more than $1.5 billion annually on education for illegal immigrant children and for their U.S.-born siblings. About 8.7 percent of the K-12 public school students in Florida are children of illegal aliens.
Health Care. Taxpayer-funded, non-reimbursed medical outlays for health care provided to the state's illegal alien population amount to about $165 million per year.
Incarceration. The uncompensated cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in Florida's state and county prisons amounts to about $60 million a year. This does not include local jail detention costs, local law enforcement and judicial expenditures, or monetary costs of the crimes committed.
Fiscal costs of illegal immigration are not limited to these areas alone. The total costs of illegal immigration to Florida's taxpayers would be considerably higher if other costs were calculated such as special English instruction, multi-lingual publications and signage, welfare programs used by the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers.
Managing the problem
The federal government has the primary responsibility for enforcing immigration laws. However, state and local governments can either discourage or encourage illegal immigrants settling in Florida, because state and local policies either facilitate or hinder federal immigration law enforcement efforts. FAIR's list of policies that undermine federal immigration law enforcement efforts and encourage illegal immigrant settlement include:
- Issuing state driver's licenses and voter registration cards to illegal aliens;
- Extending public assistance program eligibility to illegal aliens;
- Offering in-state tuition to illegal alien students;
- Adopting sanctuary or don't-ask-don't tell policies that shield illegal aliens from immigration authorities;
- Providing governmental support for or tolerance of formal or informal hiring centers where illegal aliens seek day-labor jobs; and
- Accepting foreign government-issued identity cards as establishing residence.
Conversely, FAIR's examples of state and local government practices that would discourage the settlement of illegal aliens:
- Establishing data collection for illegal alien use of public services and adopting methods to identify employers of the illegal aliens, thereby ending the exploitation of low-cost illegal alien labor by passing costs to the public;
- Requiring the collection and verification of Social Security numbers for the issuance of unrestricted driver's licenses and identity cards;
- Issuing restricted driver's licenses to aliens legally present in the state so that the license expires when the authorized stay in the United States expires;
- Refusing to accept the validity of driver's licenses from states that allow illegal aliens to obtain licenses without supporting documents that prove an applicant's residency status;
- Cooperating with federal immigration authorities to train local law enforcement personnel in immigration law enforcement so that law breakers who are identified as illegal can be turned over to the immigration authorities for removal from the country rather than being released back into society; and
- Requiring government contractors to participate in the Basic Pilot document verification system for all of their new employees working on government contracts.
It is the opinion of The B2 Journal that thus far, it appears patently obvious the elected representatives of Florida have not lived up to their obligations, regardless of whatever federal policies are currently in effect. This is darkly compounded when one also considers that the FAIR study fails to analyze the very real terrorist threats associated with undocumented immigration, as well as the burgeoning costs associated with domestic security.
Florida's law-abiding citizens and legal residents deserve representation that upholds the rule of law, the principle tenet upon which the United States is founded. Disrespect of our immigration laws is not only a grave security risk but criminal, and should be treated accordingly.