Audit Claims High Cost of Illegal Immigrants on Utah Schools
None by KCPW
(KCPW News) Undocumented children cost Utah's public school system as much as 85-million dollars a year according to a new legislative audit. KCPW's Julie Rose reports:
Utah spends as much as 85-million dollars a year to educate undocumented children in public schools. A new legislative audit draws on Pew Hispanic Institute date to estimate that between 75-thousand and 100-thousand undocumented immigrants live in Utah, and approximately one in seven of them are school-age.
State Senator Margaret Dayton requested the study and hopes it will urge Congress to reform immigration laws or begin reimbursing states for the cost of educating undocumented children.
However, House Minority Leader Ralph Becker says the audit provides only one piece of the larger picture, since it does not consider the money undocumented immigrants put into the system through income and sales taxes.
Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom, Legislative Coverage, and 2007 Legislative Coverage. Copyright 2008 KCPW
1. Doug Van Duker said:
Representative Becker's comment is indicative of someone who is either clueless to the topic of economic impacts of illegal immigration or plain old disingenuous.
1. It is well documented and recognized is the fact that US citizens, who have poor English skills and something less than a 6th grade education, don't pay enough in taxes to cover their social welfare benefits...what then is the basis for asserting that illegal immigrants, with a similar lack of skills and education, are contributing markedly more in tax payments?
2. A person who is illegally in this country has no legal access or ability to obtain either a valid green card or a US social security number...so how then would such an "undocumented worker" make income tax payments?" The all too obvious answer is that they don’t...unless they are guilty of identity fraud.
To date, there has not been a SINGLE credible study that has provide empirical economic data to even suggest that the net effect of illegal aliens on the US infrastructure isn’t a net loss. If there was one, Representative Becker, PBS, the DNC, LA Times, CNN, and the SLT would all be shouting it from the roof-tops...their silence of course speaks volumes.
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