Pelosi, Schumer To Trump: "Let's Debate Border Funds in Private"

[Dill]

(12-12-2018, 07:35 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: I don't care if the wall costs $25-200+ Billion to build.
In the long run it will be worth it as the number of Illegals crossing over dwindles to zero and the illegals that are here are caught and sent back or die off etc. Once complete those numbers will sky dive expotentionally as the number of anchor babies drastically dips.

*sighs I really should just save the data permanently cause I have to repeat it everytime the wall is brought up.

FAIR 2017 report estimates that there is a cost of $135 Billion annually for illegal immigrants. 135B-16B (taxes paid in) = 113B Totals that US Taxpayers foot the bill for.

https://fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers

Saving the data is a good idea. Also save links to the rather rigorous critiques to which the FAIR Report has been subjected.
Fred has raised some of these points above. Especially suspicious are the numbers regarding school children of illegals, many of whom are in fact citizens, and many of whom, like "real" American students, will contribute to the economy as they enter the labor force, repaying society for the benefit of public education.

Here is one: FAIR’s “Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration” Study Is Fatally Flawed
https://www.cato.org/blog/fairs-fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-study-fatally-flawed

For comparative/fact-checking purposes, there is the National Academies of Engineering, Sciences, and Medicine 2017 report:
The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration https://www.nap.edu/read/23550/chapter/1
It's a VERY long read, and not a direct refutation of FAIR's report, but you can use it as a reference or touchstone for some of the issues raised by FAIR.

This issue reminds me a bit of climate change, with the social science experts claiming even illegal immigration is a net gain for the economy and the anti-immigrant groups working up figures to the contrary--but very easy to grasp.

FINAL POINT: I was happy to see you plugging for free higher education as a possible benefit of ending illegal immigration. One normally doesn't see that valuation of higher ed from folks who want foreign matter purged from the body politic.  But good on you for articulating that goal.

However, do consider this--the politicians you vote in to build a wall would roll back Medicare and Social Security if they could. Why in the world would they channel your projected savings into a BIG GOVERNMENT HANDOUT for all Americans?  Your savings would reduce the Federal budget and so argue (in the minds of Republican leaders) for corresponding tax cuts--not for a new public good.