True/Total Costs or Surpluses of American Immigration Policy

Factual Questions
1

I’ve seen a lot of conflicting opinion and research concerning the economic costs of the current (mass) immigration policies of the US. I would observe that the weight of opinion seems to suggest a net cost, so I will use that term.

I’d like to see if we can come up with some objective and depoliticized answer to this question.

I personally have never seen a completely reliable study of this.

For instance, Don Huddle’s study (sensationalized thusly: “Mass Immigration Cost American Taxpayers $69 Billion Net and 2 Million Jobs in 1997”) has been (probably rightly) criticized for not putting the future contributions of immigrants’ kids on the plus side of the ledger.

On the other hand, I feel an honest study of immigration must take into account the impact on real estate values etc of what can be called, indelicately, slummification as exemplified by places like Elizabeth, NJ.

I hope we can get a good dialogue going on this important topic.

2

Welcome to the SDMB. As you may have noticed, General Questions is the place for factual answers to real questions. If you’re looking for debate or dialogue, you should take a look at Great Debates.

Anyways, the National Academy of Sciences published a study in 1997 that found that immigration adds upwards of $10 billion per year to the economy.

http://www4.nas.edu/news.nsf/isbn/0309063566?OpenDocument

3

Thank you for your welcome. I read the FAQs and fail to see why this question is not “real” nor the answer solicited “factual.”