# Is it possible that illegal immigrants aren't a financial drain on US citizens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 28, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658 "2010-04-28T19:42:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/21 "2010-04-30T12:58:06Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Borjas is discussing illegals (see excerpt of article). Wait, are you reading the same article I am? Because what was linked to is an opinion piece that seems to take a curious liberty with the fact you are citing. The Harvard study says that families with non-citizen heads receive more welfare. Not every non-citizen is an illegal immigrant. That citation does not show that large numbers of illegal immigrants are on welfare. I’m not saying that that isn’t the case, only that the citation does not actually back up the claim. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/22 "2010-04-30T12:58:29Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > It might be interesting to compare the impacts to the national economic resources from illegal immigrants living and working here and sending money home to their families, and corporations owned across multinational lines outsourcing jobs to coutnries with a lower cost of living and hence a lower typical expected pay rate. I’ll bet you the latter is far more deleterious to the economy than the former. Yes, it may well be. I take no position on that issue. I just wanted to refute the obviously false claim that **RickJay** made. I would parenthetically point out that the actions taken by the corporations you mention, while potentially deleterious, are unquestionably _legal_. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/23 "2010-04-30T13:43:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They said the same thing about the Irish and the Italians but after a few generations, things seem to get better. If by “better” you mean “better educated” that doesn’t always work out as planned either. Germany is having an issue with their German-Turkish population - brought in decades ago for menial labor. The kids of these workers are now grown ups, German citizens, and want better jobs - the jobs the multi-generation Germans themselves want. (Not that I’m anti-immigration, but it was in interesting case of "be careful of what you wish for.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/24 "2010-04-30T14:37:34Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > They said the same thing about the Irish and the Italians but after a few generations, things seem to get better. Not that there isn’t the occasional dissenting opinion on that point. 😉 I mean, the Potato Famine migration gave us . . . **Pat Buchanan!** ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/25 "2010-04-30T15:46:49Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Absolutely false. > > We can prove that illegal immigrants send a statistically significant portion of their dollars out of the country. What do you think happens to those U.S. dollars? [QUOTE=magellan01] It strains the imagination to think about more workers coming into a country and taking a percentage if the available jobs and that not effecting employment numbers. [/QUOTE] Honest question; where do you think jobs come from? Do they spring from the ground? Okay, the second question wasn’t honest. Jobs come from people. When people enter an economy, they fill jobs, but they also create demand for the goods and services that in turn create jobs. Immigrants - it doesn’t really matter if we’re talking legal or illegal - must eat, live in homes, buy clothes, pay their gas bills, buy toys for their kids, get haircuts, and do everything else that creates jobs. The more people you have, the more jobs you need. If adding more people just subtracted jobs without adding mroe jobs, then the unemployment rate in the United States should be about ninety-nine percent. After all, there were only jobs for a couple of million people in 1776 and now there’s over 300 million, so where’d all the jobs come from? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/26 "2010-04-30T15:49:04Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > What do you think happens to those U.S. dollars? They’re spent on goods and services in Mexico, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, or wherever our hypothetical immigrant is from. Some may make it back to our shores, but some won’t, thus destroying your “exactly equal” canard. Of those that return to our shores, some will be in payment for goods and servcies, and some will be to service foreign debt, increasing capitalization overseas. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/27 "2010-04-30T17:25:51Z")
Historically, cheap labor has always been bad for the economy. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/28 "2010-04-30T17:30:26Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > As a former doctoral student, I can assure you that they aren’t exactly in a top tax bracket either. 😉 Not while they are students but I think we should staple a greencard to every engineering, math and science masters and doctoral degree in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/29 "2010-04-30T17:38:08Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > We need to keep in mind that that went up when we were hungry to attract immigrants. That’s not the case now. Especially with employment around 10%. I hear you. We no longer need a large cheap unskilled labor force because there is simply no way that we can compete with China and India on labor costs. Over the long run Americans will need to have incredible amounts of human capital in order to justify the sort of standard of living we have relative to the rest of the world. > [@](#): > > I doubt that’s right. Especially particularly the Italians, who predominantly came later, legally, through Ellis Island. I was referring to the “fact” that immigrants are generally poorer than citizens. My point is that the children of today’s immigrants are tomorrow’s citizens and they are not as poor as their parents (generally speaking). ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/30 "2010-04-30T17:40:29Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Immigration has effectively no impact on unemployment, never has. The absorption of labour into the market is precisely offset by the corresponding increase in demand for goods and services created by the new immigrants that create demand for more labour. Not if the money earned by illegal immigrants are sent back overseas. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/31 "2010-04-30T17:49:07Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Of those that return to our shores, some will be in payment for goods and servcies, and some will be to service foreign debt, increasing capitalization overseas. How does U.S. money coming back into the U.S. service _foreign_ (to the United States) debt? If it services foreign (to the other country) debt, surely that serves the interests of the United States? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/32 "2010-04-30T17:57:47Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > How does U.S. money coming back into the U.S. service _foreign_ (to the United States) debt? > > If it services foreign (to the other country) debt, surely that serves the interests of the United States? It may well serve the interests of the United States. But that wasn’t the claim you made. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/33 "2010-04-30T17:58:53Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It strains the imagination to think about more workers coming into a country and taking a percentage if the available jobs and that not effecting employment numbers. Especially when they often work for below market wages and displace native workers. Assuming they spend every dollar they earn, they (theoretically) have a zero net impact on employment while increasing production but my guess is that some of that money gets saved or sent home. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/34 "2010-04-30T18:01:23Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Here’s the full exchange: > > To which I replied. Borjas is discussing illegals (see excerpt of article). **Damuri Ajashi’s** comment goes to the large wave Italian immigration during the first part of the last century. Illegal immigration was not an issue as they came in through and Ellis Island and were processed. So, my comment was to point out that he was comparing apples and oranges: legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. I don’t think you are reading that article correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/35 "2010-04-30T18:03:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not that there isn’t the occasional dissenting opinion on that point. 😉 > > I mean, the Potato Famine migration gave us . . . **Pat Buchanan!** Its amazing how he used to considered kinda hard right, I think I’d consider him moderate conservative these days simply because he doesn’t froth at the mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/36 "2010-04-30T18:05:24Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > What do you think happens to those U.S. dollars? I dunno, what happens to all those dollars we send to China and Saudi Arabia? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/37 "2010-04-30T19:13:11Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Historically, cheap labor has always been bad for the economy. Right? Nope, but cheap immigrant labor has always been bad for unskilled uneducated domestic labor. If you are an American and you don’t want your kids competing with illegal immigrants for jobs then you better see to it that they go to school and learn something that will qualify them for a job where they will not be competing with immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/38 "2010-04-30T19:26:52Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I dunno, what happens to all those dollars we send to China and Saudi Arabia? It depends. Dollars sent overseas have to come back sooner or later; the U.S. dollar is not legal tender in China. Eventually, they’ll all be used to buy U.S. goods and services, that being what you do with U.S. dollars. Money isn’t destroyed, it’s just shifted around, and it has to come back. How fast they go out and come back impacts the U.S. economy through inflation. If immigrants send all their money out of the country (which they don’t, but never mind that for now) the inevitable result is an upward pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar, since money’s being taken out of circulation but economic value isn’t; fewer dollars are chasing the same number of goods, so you have lower inflation. (you could have deflation, theoretically, but the Fed doesn’t let that happen.) That’s good for Americans in many ways. The money you’re saving retains more of its value. On the other hand, dollars must also come back in, because that’s what foreigners do with their dollars eventually. Many of those dollars are used to buy things America makes, like airplanes, iPods, movies, food, and computers. As it stands, of course, what a lot of them are spending the dollars on is IOUs from the U.S. government, and that’s got its own problems, but it’d hard for me to understand how it’s Pedro’s fault that the U.S. government doesn’t have the sack to raise taxes or cut spending. Anyway, the balance of those movements impacts inflation. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/39 "2010-04-30T20:03:30Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It strains the imagination to think about more workers coming into a country and taking a percentage if the available jobs and that not effecting employment numbers. Especially when they often work for below market wages and displace native workers. If that’s true, though, wouldn’t a growing (native) population then be bad for the economy? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658/40 "2010-04-30T20:13:14Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > As it stands, of course, what a lot of them are spending the dollars on is IOUs from the U.S. government, and that’s got its own problems, but it’d hard for me to understand how it’s Pedro’s fault that the U.S. government doesn’t have the sack to raise taxes or cut spending. > > Anyway, the balance of those movements impacts inflation. Right – but we’ve now settled the claim that the absorption of labor into the market is precisely offset by the corresponding increase in demand for goods and services created by the new immigrants that create demand for more labor – and we have settled in the negative. Agreed? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-that-illegal-immigrants-arent-a-financial-drain-on-us-citizens/537658.md?page=3)