This study examines the fiscal impact of illegal aliens as reflected in both federal and state budgets. FAIR firmly believes that the costs of illegal immigration (and massive legal immigration) significantly outweigh any perceived benefit. Accordingly, this study focuses only on calculating the overall costs of illegal immigration.

This report estimates the annual costs of illegal immigration at the federal, state and local level to be about $113 billion; nearly $29 billion at the federal level and $84.2 billion at the state and local level. The study also estimates tax collections from illegal alien workers, both those in the above-ground economy and those in the underground economy. Those receipts do not come close to the level of expenditures and, in any case, are misleading as an offset because over time unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers would replace illegal alien workers.

The recent level of illegal immigration to the United States has increased debates about the effect of these immigrants on the cost of public services, and states have begun to enact policies that limit the public services available to illegal immigrants. The central issues are how many illegal immigrants reside in particular local areas and states and their effect on public expenditures and revenues and the economy in general. The Local Fiscal Effects of Illegal Immigration workshop selected six studies for analysis. The six case studies focused on one specific aspect of the complex question of the demographic, economic, and social effects of immigration: the net public services costs of illegal immigrants to selected geographical regions.