Immigration Bill Cost Estimated At $6.3 Trillion, Says Conservative Think Tank: Why Has The Study Been Criticized?

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has released the results of a study claiming that the immigration reform bill proposed by the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators will cost the United States about $6.3 trillion dollars, according to FOX News. Critics say the study's methodology is flawed and indicate that the cost of government benefits and services to which immigrants will gain access will be offset by a large-scale economic boost which may not be immediately quantifiable.

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The Heritage Foundation's study's $6.3 trillion figure is the estimated cost of offering legal status to those eligible under the proposed legislation - a figure that factors in the $3.1 trillion in taxes that these currently undocumented immigrants are expected to pay to the government. The report says that over the course of their lifetimes, they would cost the government an average of $592,000, even taking into account the 10-year period in which they would not be considered eligible for government assistance. It factors in benefits like Social Security, Medicare, and President Obama's health care law, as well as a wide array of welfare services like housing assistance and food stamps. Costs for public education and services like roads, police, fire, and national parks were also determined to rise in consequence.

"No matter how you slice it, amnesty will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America's already strained public purse," Robert Rector, the Heritage scholar who prepared the report on the study, said in a statement.

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By contrast, Marshall Fitz, the director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, wrote in April in the New York Times that "legalization would increase the earnings of all Americans, provide more jobs and generate federal, state and local tax revenues".

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"The economic logic is straightforward: legalized workers end up earning higher wages by, among other things, pursuing jobs that best match their skills and investing in training and education. Those opportunities translate into an average wage increase after legalization of around 15 percent."

Fitz added that the increase in wages would translate into bigger returns as workers invest surplus earnings in purchasing goods like homes, cars and computers and pay greater tax revenues. "That consumption creates more demand for goods and services, which leads to economic growth and job creation," Fitz wrote.

According to the Huffington Post, during Congress' last immigration debate in 2007, the Heritage Foundation issued a report saying the bill under consideration would cost $2.6 trillion, an estimate which Republicans referenced frequently in their opposition to the bill. Despite support from then-president George W. Bush, the proposal was defeated by conservative Republicans.