Steve Quayle News Alerts

Sept. 5, 2001

Miguel Zapata, an undocumented worker who has been in the United States since 1983, says he has been discriminated against by Hispanics here legally.

Yet José and his wife, Josefina, say their status as illegal immigrants prohibits them from making their own home here and laying the foundation for a new life in America.

"If I want to buy a house, I can't because I don't have credit," says Josefina, 46, a housekeeper. "If I want to open a bank account, I can't, because I don't have a Social Security number.

"With a legalization, it would be different. It would be fair for us. We've spent so long working so hard."

President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox meet in Washington, D.C., today, debating the costs and contributions of the nation's undocumented work force here.

Although studies on how much undocumented workers contribute to the economy rely heavily on government data, estimates vary by billions of dollars.

The U.S. government is benefiting through illegal workers' payments of Social Security and federal taxes, researchers agree. States also collect sales tax and indirect property taxes through rentals.

Most undocumented workers use fake identification papers and contribute a lifetime's work to a Social Security account that will not pay them a dollar.

"In Social Security and taxes, I pay $120 a week, $500 a month," said José, 47, who asked that his family's last name not be used for fear of deportation. "Where does that money go? How could anyone say I'm a cost to the American government?"

While unclaimed Social Security payments fatten government coffers, others see the drain on the economy of social services, including education and health care, provided to undocumented workers and their families.

According to a controversial report by the Center for Immigration Studies, the average Mexican immigrant - legal or illegal - costs taxpayers $55,200 over a lifetime.

"I think it's a very hard case to make that massive unskilled immigration is a good deal for the U.S. economy," said Steven Camarota, author of the study. "Mexican immigrants, because of their lower education levels and low income, pay less in taxes and use a lot more in social services."

But immigrant advocates cite another study, released last week by the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California-Los Angeles, that says immigrants contribute $300 billion in wages and taxes annually to the U.S. economy.
The UCLA study, which relies on some of the same data as the CIS study, advocates legalization of undocumented workers and a visa program that gives full rights to guest workers who pay taxes.

The researchers agree that the cost to taxpayers living near the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border is greater than to taxpayers in the rest of the nation.

A University of Arizona study found that every Pima County taxpayer paid $15 out of his pocket in fiscal 1999 to cover undocumented immigrants' emergency medical care and additional judicial system costs.

For all Arizona border counties combined, the tab for those costs reached more than $23 million.

When it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis of the undocumented work force, there is no clear answer, said UA researcher Tanis Salant, who studies U.S.-Mexico border issues.
"If we're looking at it through just an economic-impact lens, because of the low skills level and low level of education, on balance it's probably not a positive impact," Salant said.

"But if you view it in the long term, it would probably have a positive impact socially, if not economically. In the interim, hopefully some reforms will be made in Mexico that will increase the incentive to work there."

When José and his wife left their home in Jalisco, Mexico, in 1993 and crossed the border near Nogales, they brought along their children, now 15, 20 and 23.

"In Mexico I couldn't support my family. I couldn't work," José said. "That's why I came here, to make a better life for my family."

Federal law requires the government to educate all students in grades K-12, regardless of their immigration status.

The youngest daughter has special education needs that could not be met in Mexican schools, José added.

José and Josefina wanted to buy a house in Tucson, they said, but have no credit because they use fake Social Security numbers.

They rented homes, but landlords have taken advantage of their undocumented status to evict them and seize their deposits, she said, sometimes up to $1,000.

"When you have legal papers, you don't have to run. You can stand up to that," José said.

Josefina sees legalization as a way out of poverty, not a ticket to social services, she said.

A change in her immigration status would allow her to get a better-paying job and maybe even health insurance, she said.

"If I got a job in a factory, then I would make more and pay more in taxes," she said.

José takes medication daily that costs $3 a pill. He pays for the pills out of his pocket.

The family goes to the doctor only in emergencies. When someone comes down with a cold or ear infection, Josefina diagnoses it and doles out medicine stored in a cabinet in their trailer.

Health care for undocumented immigrants remains a major issue in Arizona.

In the CIS study, Camarota reports that 31 percent of the uninsured population in the state are Mexican immigrants or their U.S.-born children.

Legal immigrants are more likely to take advantage of benefits such as state-subsidized health care than undocumented workers, according to his study.

"If we legalize folks, it would make the fiscal equation even worse," Camarota said.
But the cost-benefit analysis of undocumented labor leaves out another major factor in the immigration equation, José said.

"I want to know what would happen if one day all the Latinos said, 'We're not going to work today,'" he said. "Then what would happen to this country?"
TRICIA McINROY/Tucson Citizen
SUSAN CARROLL, Citizen Staff Writer
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/local/archive/01/immig01/9_5_01border.html