Talk:Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States

message: Lets see now we rip out the economic talk from the main page and put it in a obscure corner so most people will miss it and then just to be sure we delete most of the referenced material that shows illegal immigrants cost big bucks and put in as a main reference to Christine Lipman, a Hispanic lawyer, who just baldly asserts that illegals [mostly Hispanic] pay for their own way in taxes etc. No chance for bias here though--no siree. Her reference is to a obscure 1991 New Mexico Law Review footnote of unknown quality and basically unobtainable [how convenient] and how out of date. The National Science Foundation's report requested by Congress in 1995 is a little better authority on the subject than Ms. Lipman since 15 well known economists etc. (actually listed  in the report) actually spent two years  studying this subject and concluded that immigrants cost the U.S. taxpayer tens of billions of dollars each year. And then we include a laughable RAND study on medical costs for illegal immigrants that concludes they only cost about $100/year. Massachusetts is screaming becasue their mandated, cut down coverage, is coming in at $386/month or $4632/year. $100/year what a bargain or what a fantasy???
Then to round off the farce we quote a thoroughly questionable Ms. Lipman as the main source on taxation--wow no bias here.D'lin
Professor of Law Francine Lipman is a recognized expert on taxation. Her 58 pages scholarly paper was published in the peer-reviewed tax law journal of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation. We already refer to the National Science Foundation's report.Terjen 22:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nor is a single one of the sources you quoted.  They certainly match your ideology.  But they are quite literally circular or made up references that have been thoroughly debunked. 71.218.191.144 (talk) 05:13, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

text: Here we are, a decade later, and this article continues to contain a boatload of crap while continuing to delete all relevant material because it makes just one side of this argument look bad.  I don't know what the heavily biased ones think they're doing, but they're fooling no one.  In fact, my classes I used this as article as a clear example of just how far Wikipedia's approach to encyclopedic entries has to go before it's can be deemed reliable.  Many articles are fantastic and very well maintained.  This is most certainly not among them.  Quite frankly, the gross and flagrant bias is rather disgusting.Clepsydrae (talk) 04:39, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

text: Christ man, calm down, it's a fucking web site. 24.127.51.40 17:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I strongly disagree, I believe that FAIR, as well as two American states constitute a decent representation of the facts.  At the same time if you are aware of data that disputes those claims please let us know about it. - Schrandit (talk) 19:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, typically, one does not delete sourced material while submitting revisions to it. - Schrandit (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: This write up on so called economics includes a lot of crap

message: Here's part of what what was deleted and "Edited/censured/obscured" etc. so readers can form their own opinion. 
Previous studies (and many subsequent) of the fiscal impacts of immigration were found to have serious deficiencies. In 1995, only a handful of existing empirical studies were available. According to an article in The National Academies Press, these studies "[...]" represented not science but advocacy from both sides of the immigration debate, often offered an incomplete accounting of either the full list of taxpayer costs and benefits by ignoring some programs and taxes while including others", and that the  "foundation of this research was rarely explicitly stated, offering opportunities to tilt the research toward the desired result" The Immigration Debate: Studies on the Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (1998), pp.2, The National Academies Press (1998) Available online
*In an article that appeared in the World Policy Journal (1994), Peter Andreas asserts that constraining the flow of illegal immigration in states such as California, may result in economic stagnation. Andreas, Peter, The Making of Amerexico (Mis)Handling Illegal Immigration, World Policy Journal Vol. 11.2 (1994): pp.55. "The sad irony is that the most important constraint on the flow of illegal aliens may be continued economic stagnation in states such as California. In periods of recession, labor markets tighten, reducing em- ployment opportunities--both legal and illegal. Economic recovery, on the other hand--propelled in no small part by the hard work of illegal laborers already here-- would expand opportunities in the labor market, encouraging continued illegal immigration."
*A study by the Rand Corporation, conducted by Kevin McCarthy and Georges Vernez, came to the conclusion that immigrants do not have a negative effect on the earnings and the employment opportunities of native-born Americans. McCarthy, Kevin F., Vernez, Georges, Immigration in a Changing Economy, Rand Corporation (1997), 
*Another RAND study concluded that the total federal cost of providing medical expenses for the 78% illegal immigrants without health insurance coverage was $1.1 billion, with immigrants paying $321 million of health care costs out-of-pocket. The study found that illegal immigrants tend to visit physicians less frequently than U.S. citizens because they are younger and because people with chronic health problems are less likely to immigrate.
*Professor of Law Francine Lipman writes that the belief that illegal migrants are exploiting the US economy and that they cost more in services than they contribute to the economy, is "undeniable false". Lipman asserts that illegal aliens provide a net positive benefit to federal coffers, because of the tax law's treatment of those in the country illegally and those who are married to illegal aliens: they are ineligible for the Earned Income Credit and the Child Tax Credit, and that 85% of eminent (un-named) economists surveyed  have concluded that illegal immigrants have had a positive impact on the U.S. economy J. Lipman, Francine, J.Taxing illegal Immigrants: Separate, Unequal and Without Representation Available online" 
*The CIS claims that many illegal aliens use the U.S. welfare program with false identification. 
*The Identity Theft Resource Center states that one of the two most frequent purchasers of the identify information of minors (for identity theft) is illegal aliens http://www.idtheftcenter.org/vg120.shtml
*Another study put the cost to the federal government at $2,700/household  On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal government are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.
*Still another study put the net costs to California residents at $433/household for European/Canadian immigrants, $1,240/household for Asian immigrants and $8,182/household for Latin American workers TABLE 4-7a Net Fiscal Impacts by Nativity of Householder pg 160-1. These are the costs calculated for all immigrants legal and illegal.
*Madeleine Cosman contends that the requirement of hospitals to offer service to illegal aliens regardless of the alien's ability to pay has led to many hospitals running a deficit and being forced to close. Also, free public education is extended to all children in the U.S. regardless of their citizen status. The matricula consular and passports are usually considered legal identification by many police agencies and governments.
D'lin
Most of the alleged deleted material listed above is still in the entry, but has been organized into different sections. I deleted the claims about identity theft and false identification as it is of little relevance for the topic of the entry.
Terjen 21:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here we are, a decade later, and this article continues to contain a boatload of crap while continuing to delete all relevant material because it makes just one side of this argument look bad.  I don't know what the heavily biased ones think they're doing, but they're fooling no one.  In fact, my classes I used this as article as a clear example of just how far Wikipedia's approach to encyclopedic entries has to go before it's can be deemed reliable.  Many articles are fantastic and very well maintained.  This is most certainly not among them.  Quite frankly, the gross and flagrant bias is rather disgusting.Clepsydrae (talk) 04:39, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Sample of deleted material

message: Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most illegal immigrant workers have been using fake or stolen ID's and social security numbers to get a job. Many employers who hire illegals (less than 10% do and over 90% do not), even when they know these cards are possibly fake, to avoid possible prosecution, go thorough the drill of with holding social security and income taxes and sending the required numbers and tax payments on to the IRS and Social Security administration (SSA). Amazingly there is no mandatory verification of Social Security numbers for employers  though there are several voluntary ways [Basic Pilot, Employee Verification System (EVS), etc] to get social security number verification. Employers may be almost forced to use cheaper illegal labor if all or a significant fraction of their competitors are using it—so the almost total lack of interior enforcement and document verification seriously increases the hiring of illegal labor. 
When Social Security numbers are already in use (possible stolen ID); names do not match the numbers or the numbers are fake, or the person of record is too old young, dead etc., the earnings reported to the Social Security Agency are put in a Earnings Suspense file [ESF]. Through diligent work, the Social Security spends about $100 million a year and corrects all but about 2% of these mismatches. From Tax Years (TY) 1937 through 2003 the ESF had accumulated about 255 million mismatched wage reports, representing $520 billion in wages and about $75 billion in employment taxes paid into the over $1500 billion in the Social Security Trust funds. As of October 2005, approximately 8.8 million wage reports, representing $57.8 billion in wages remained unresolved in the suspense file for TY 2003.  This money represents income reporting mistakes, honest and otherwise of U.S. citizens and income paid by illegal immigrant workers and underground U.S. workers using counterfeit or stolen cards. The largest single source of this mismatched income is illegal immigrant workers. Assuming about $50 billion of this misreported income is due to illegal immigrant workers says they are paying about $4.0 billion/year of the total Social Security income (their illegal employers pay the same). To put this in persepective it should be noted that in 2005 SSA brought in  $1045.2 billion dollars total of taxes and interest.  
Despite some reports of a giant fiscal windfall for the federal government, all illegal immigrant worker’s Social Security contributions would pay for a little more than a few days of current Social Security payments and don’t even come close to paying for all the medicaid and other financial costs paid for by the federal government. For example, if the 4% of the population thought to be in the United States illegally received only 4% of the medicaid $200 billion budget [2007] this would be $8.0 billion dollars (a more exact calculation would increase this to $12 billion) in federally paid medical costs alone. A $50 billion in reported income represents roughly 40-50% of the 4 million illegal households income averaging about $30,000/year or about $100-120 billion/year total. 
Its safe to assume that if Social Security was withheld so was Federal income taxes and conversely if it wasn’t withheld the vast majority of illegal immigrants don’t voluntarily pay income taxes on unreported  income either (just as in Mexico). Assuming $50 billion in reported income and a average tax rate in the first quintile as calculated by the CBO of  4.8%  the federal income taxes paid by illegal immigrants would be about $2.5 billion total or about $1,500 for the 50% of the households paying any income taxes. The rest of the housholds are in the under ground economy and pay no federal income tax.
Enough all ready,
D'lin
I would agree that the content above "includes a lot of crap", or as I would say, mostly original research and spin.Terjen 22:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Christ man, calm down, it's a fucking web site. 24.127.51.40 17:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I strongly disagree, I believe that FAIR, as well as two American states constitute a decent representation of the facts.  At the same time if you are aware of data that disputes those claims please let us know about it. - Schrandit (talk) 19:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, typically, one does not delete sourced material while submitting revisions to it. - Schrandit (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Illegal immigrants social security and IRS tax payments

message: I have removed the paragraph below as it is blatantly false:
The 1997 study The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration by the National Science Foundation concluded that illegal immigrants do not pay enough taxes to pay for the government services State, Local and federal they receive by living in the united states..
-- Terjen 19:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NSF Study 

message: An anonymous editor has re-written the article with no explanation. Would he please explain his edits? One editor has already objected reverted the changes, but the anon simply reverted and called that edit vandalism. If the edits aren't explained I'll rrevert them too.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 21:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My appologies for lack of knowledge here -- this is my first edit. I made some edits last night (which appear to have been reverted), but they are not the ones you linked to. I was confused by the table under "Education" section which said that the total cost was around 29 million. Upon going to the source, I realized these numbers are all in thousands here on Wikipedia. But it doesn't state that anywhere (while it does on the source). I find that pretty misleading. And I don't think just adding "numbers are in thousands" is enough either as the numbers have no decimals to suggest such a truncation. So, I stated that the numbers are in millions (as the source did) and chopped off the last two zeros of each number. So, instead of "$28,607,800", it reads "$28,607.8 million".  —Mhleggett 06:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My comment wasn't about your edit, which seemed reasonable. It was concerning the edits of 198.97.67.58, et al.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 07:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Its a great deal of material.  I think you are obligated to point out what exactly you are objecting to in these edits.  However, as an act of good faith, I will attempt to answer any questions you have.
A great deal of the content that was removed was marked with fact tags and left alone for several days before being removed.
Content removed under that reason include,
"The economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States depends on whether taxes paid by illegal immigrants and their contributions to the economy make up for the government services which they use, as well as the economic input of the immigrants themselves and the cost of externalities such as added strain on public health that they may add."
"Many studies of the fiscal impacts of immigration have serious deficiencies. In 1995, only a handful of existing empirical studies were available."
"An increasing number of banks contend that providing illegal residents with mortgages helps revitalize local communities, as they buy and rebuild run-down properties."
Other content was removed because the sources provided don't actually state what they are claimed to state.  Content removed under that reason include,
"Those who find that immigrants, including illegal immigrants, produce a negative effect on the US economy often focus on the difference between taxes paid and government services received, such as education, medical care, and incarceration of illegal immigrants.]"
The rest of the edits was the addition of properly sourced content and, so, shouldn't be an issue.
Do you have any specific questions about the edits which I haven't answered above and, if so, what are they?-75.179.153.110 (talk) 05:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  March 2008 changes 

message: As much of the health sector, particularly for illegal immigrants, is funded by tax money and has a large impact on the economy I say we put it back in. - Schrandit (talk) 02:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just make sure there's a reliable source, which wouldn't' include Madeleine Cosman.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 18:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

text: There a good "Health care" section there now.  ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 18:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Re-addition of the health section

message: What kind of source is FAIR for immigration numbers...they are openly anti immigrant and totally bias in their study. This 2002 Southern Poverty Law Center article argues some grassroots movements against immigrants are really the calculated creation of one man. Included in these groups are the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies, the California Coalition for Immigration Reform and the American Immigration Control Foundation. If these numbers go up, it's only fair they be prefaced with this information...
The Puppeteer
:FAIR has been declared a Hate Group by the SPLC, and most certainly does not constitute a reliable source, by any stratch of the imagination. (Nor does any other group associated with Tanton.) --Ramsey2006 (talk) 18:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "The liberals declared normal people a hate group". Anyone with a moderated opinion is a hate group to them. 2600:8800:8800:76:0:0:0:B6 (talk) 15:37, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I might read about why they determined it a hate group before saying that... 2601:192:417F:FB40:D641:1337:4960:7A00 (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

text: you just proved SPLC's point. 47.185.13.146 (talk) 18:10, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

text: True 2600:8800:8800:76:0:0:0:B6 (talk) 15:38, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

text: whatever you think of the splc, the reasons they cite for fair being a hate group are... fair.  The founding member himself,  John Tanton, is very openly racist. According to Rafael Bernal of the Hill, Tanton's opposition to immigration was "on the grounds of population reduction and protection of an ethnic white majority". (That last sentence I copied from his wiki, full disclosure, you should read it) 2601:192:417F:FB40:D641:1337:4960:7A00 (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Just wanted to come in here and say that I also noticed that fair was cited. Whether or not fair is a hate group (it is), the article that is cited has no sources cited within it. It is not a peer reviewed source, there is no basis for the assertions made within the article. It’s an opinion piece, therefore it has no basis for being cited as a source. 2601:246:8300:3840:68DC:41EB:DCE5:120F (talk) 15:37, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAIR...are you kidding me? 

message: I think this article has an issue with undue weight because it focuses mainly on state benefits as opposed to total economic output. To understand the total economic impact of illegal immigrants on the United States, what I really want to know is whether the portion of US GDP made by US permanent residents is higher or lower as a result of illegal immigrants. Whether illegal immigrants cost money through social services is important but secondary. If their work results in substantially increased profit for US employers and income for their US permanent resident employees then illegal immigrants could still be a net benefit. This article completely omits consideration of this competing factor. —Othniel Kenaz 21:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Are there any sources that have the information you're talking about?   Will Beback  talk   21:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not familiar enough with the subject to name any. But this is mostly covering the public sector. We need to know the impacts on US companies too. —Othniel Kenaz 22:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undue weight to state benefits  

message: I see that Farcaster has removed the undue weight sign from above. He also added some information on wages. Thanks for this information. However, that there is no information on the profits and viability of US companies benefiting from illegal immigration is a continuing problem with this article. One would expect illegal immigration to depress wages but it will also depress prices for the US consumer and heighten profits and viability for some US companies owned by citizens. This might or might not outweigh the negative effects but obviously just taking into account negative effects doesn't paint a complete private sector picture. If anyone can add this it would be much appreciated. —Othniel Kenaz 19:20, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Economic benefits for US companies and consumers 

message: An editor introduced information that shifted this article to a distinctive anti-immigration position.  The research (CBO, NPR, S&P) does not support the economic conclusions that were indicated as factual in the introduction.  Conclusions from the CBO report were attributed to other sources and the text removed.  Conclusions indicated for the NPR article that were not included therein. Please introduce those in an appropriate section in the body with an appropriate description of the activist group(s) that reported it.Farcaster (talk) 17:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction of significant bias into article 

message: Is there content in the pipes to put in this section. The term for me ends in a few weeks and I suspect it ends for you too. cheers --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 21:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI If this section gets filled the article hag a great shot at being a good article --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 17:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Equity of Distribution of Costs and Benefits 

message: Good work improving this article so far!  Here is some feedback on the article to help improve it further:
* Section titles should be in sentence case: all lowercase letters except for the first letter and any proper nouns.  Also, the section titles should not be complete sentences, they should be phrases
* Right now the article is set up as sections on benefits, costs, and weighing the two, which I think makes the article a bit choppy.  The article might have better flow if it were arranged according to different themes or aspects of illegal immigration's effects, with each discussing the benefits and costs in context.
Also, the professor wants you to solicit feedback from other Wikipedians; the best way to do this is to leave a note on a relevant WikiProject's talk page.  I'd suggest Wikipedia:WikiProject United States and Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics.  Keep up the good work!  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 00:43, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: To back up what Antony-22 said, here is an example: one of your sections is titled "Illegal Workers Subsidize Social Security". It would be better named something along the lines of "Social Security subsidization". Note both the brief phrasing and the use of sentence case. LadyofShalott 02:37, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Campus Ambassador comments 

message: This is a terribly written piece, even by Wikipedia's low standards.  Grammar, poor grasp of the English language and no concept of argumentation punctuate this sorry piece.  Wikipedia does not need money, it needs a burial...
184.7.106.227 (talk) 04:26, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horrible article 

message: Does that make any sense?  It is sourced to an opinion piece on public radio.  Is everyone speaking on public radio automatically an expert and should have their opinions used as a reliable source?  Or is that just WP:UNDUE WEIGHT?  Dream Focus 00:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonsense about them helping more than they hurt the economy 

message: Dr. Ramos has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
We believe Dr. Ramos has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:
*Reference : Nicodemo, Catia & Ramos, Raul, 2011. "Wage Differentials between Native and Immigrant Women in Spain: Accounting for Differences in the Supports," IZA Discussion Papers 5571, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 19:57, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Ramos's comment on this article 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The following section from the Illegal immigration to the United States is far more comprehensive and readable than most of the content in this article. Most of the content in this article is badly organized sections, random factoids and random think tank papers (both pro- and anti-immigration). I'm unable to copy-paste the text, because of editing restrictions against copy-pasting verbatim text to more than two articles (a restriction that shouldn't prevent anyone reading this from copy-pasting the text). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:14, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Illegal immigrants contribute to lower prices of US-produced goods and services, which benefits consumers.[7]  Economists estimate that legalization of the current unauthorized immigrant population would increase the immigrants' earnings[17][18][19][129][7] and consumption considerably.[20] Those two sentences side by side should show a problem.  They make cheaper goods and services because they work cheap and their employers don't pay Social Security taxes on them.  Also what's up with the last sentence?  A 2017 study in the Journal of Public Economics found that more intense immigration enforcement increased the likelihood that US-born children with undocumented immigrant parents would live in poverty.[132] If their parents get deported, they'll go with them, so they won't be living in poverty here.  If one parent was a citizen, then marrying them would keep the other in the nation.  Dream Focus 18:58, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we please import my text to this article? 

message: Can someone add the following paragraphs from the Immigration page to this page?:
* Research on the economic effects of undocumented immigrants is scant but existing studies suggests that the effects are positive for the native population, and public coffers. A 2015 study shows that "increasing deportation rates and tightening border control weakens low-skilled labor markets, increasing unemployment of native low-skilled workers. Legalization, instead, decreases the unemployment rate of low-skilled natives and increases income per native." Studies show that legalization of undocumented immigrants would boost the U.S. economy; a 2013 study found that granting legal status to undocumented immigrants would raise their incomes by a quarter (increasing U.S. GDP by approximately $1.4 trillion over a ten-year period), and a 2016 study found that "legalization would increase the economic contribution of the unauthorized population by about 20%, to 3.6% of private-sector GDP." A 2018 National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that undocumented immigrants to the United States "generate higher surplus for US firms relative to natives, hence restricting their entry has a depressing effect on job creation and, in turn, on native labor markets."
* A 2017 study in the Journal of Public Economics found that more intense immigration enforcement increased the likelihood that US-born children with undocumented immigrant parents would live in poverty.
* A paper by Spanish economists found that upon legalizing the undocumented immigrant population in Spain, the fiscal revenues increased by around €4,189 per newly legalized immigrant. The paper found that the wages of the newly legalized immigrants increased after legalization, some low-skilled natives had worse labor market outcomes and high-skilled natives had improved labor market outcomes.
* A 2018 study found no evidence that apprehensions of undocumented immigrants in districts in the United States improved the labor market outcomes for American natives.
Thank you. I can't add it due to editing restrictions. The article currently incorrectly asserts that undocumented immigrants have a negative impact on economic outcomes in the US. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request: relevant research 

message: Both this Wikipedia article as well as the one on Illegal immigration use incorrect terminology.  This is not a matter of preference, but one of legality.  In fact, the use of the term "illegal immigrant" is an oxymoron.  By definition, "immigrants" are both lawful and documented aliens, whereas the group of people nearly ubiquitously mentioned in these articles are neither currently documented nor legal.  Quite simply, the correct term is "undocumented alien."  
In fact, there are six groups of citizens in the United States of America.  Each and every person in the United States fits in one and only one of these six groups:
1.  U.S. Citizens:  Born in the U.S.; born outside the U.S. but whose parent is a U.S. citizen; former alien who has been naturalized as a U.S. citizen; born in Puerto Rico; born in Guam; born in the U.S. Virgin Islands (As per Constitutional law and U.S. Supreme Court case law, only U.S. citizens have the right to vote in federal elections).
2. U.S. National:  Born in American Samoa or the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (same rights as U.S. Citizens; may choose to remain U.S. Nationals or can become U.S. citizens).
3. Compact of Free Association:  Citizen of Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Marshall Islands, or the Republic of Palau (free to enter, work, and leave the U.S. at any time).
4.  Immigrant Alien:  An alien who has been granted the right by the USCIS to reside permanently in the U.S. and to work without restrictions; also known as a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR); issued a USCIS I-551 aka "green card"; MAY be eligible to apply and test for U.S. Citizenship
5.  Nonimmigrant Alien:  An alien who has been granted the right to reside temporarily in the U.S.; some are employable while others are not; includes tourists, visitors, and people on business.
6.  Undocumented Alien:  An alien who either entered the U.S. illegally or whose status changed from legal to illegal, usually by overstaying the term of their visa.
Again, 100% of people in the United States of America fall into these six groups.  No one can be in more than one group at a time.  Limited movement between some of these groups is available, provided the individual meets the right conditions.  Sources for this missive include U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Federal Law, and U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Court Decisions aka Opinions (Case Law).Clepsydrae (talk) 00:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect Terminology 

message: I think any discussion about the costs of illegal immigration is incomplete if it does not include the costs of public benefits (SNAP, Medicaid, public education) provided to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. While these children are U.S. citizens entitled to such benefits, it is undeniable that these children would not be eligible for SNAP or Medicaid had they been born in the parents' countries of origin.  Marshach (talk) 00:54, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, it needs to be there since it show the economic impact of their illegal immigrant parents.  Dream Focus 02:36, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cost of public benefits to U.S.- born children of illegal immigrants should be included. 

message: Lost in the Immigration analysis are the indirect invisible and negative consequences and costs of population growth on the Environment and Cost of Living and Quality of Life in addition to increased Infrastructure needs.
The United States has a finite amount of land it can use to provide resources for its people to maintain a high quality of life.  A higher population thus implies fewer resources available per person necessitating a higher cost for those resources, ceteris paribus.
Also, having a higher population means having more pollution, resulting in a negative impact on the Environment.  Additionally, as people spread out and occupy more land, we have less open space (and more crowding) reducing Quality of Life, at least if you like open spaces, wild animals, and wilderness.
I don't know if studies have been done examining the economic costs of population growth, but here is a list of resources whose prices could be affected by immigration-driven population growth:
* Land for Agriculture - More people means an increased demand for food, but presumably the best and most productive arable land is already in use, so additional land used for agricultural production may be expected to have decreasing marginal food production ability.
* Land for Animal Feeding - More people means an increased demand for meat and dairy products.  Many of these animals are raised in CAFO's - concentrated animal feeding operations - which many people find inhumane and which may have a negative impact on the environment.
* Land for Landfills - Ever wonder where that increasing amount of garbage being generated by an ever increasing amount of people who like to consume heavily goes?  It goes into landfills.  More people means that more land will need to be used for it.
* Land for Housing - More people means that more land is needed for housing, potentially increasing the price of housing.  All of these land uses are potentially in conflict with one another.
* Lumber for Building Houses - Higher prices for lumber means higher housing costs.  Cutting down trees also reduces the amount of trees that available to sequester carbon and to convert CO2 to oxygen.
* Freshwater (ideally clean, unpolluted water) - Freshwater is needed for human consumption, agriculture and CAFO activities.  Some parts of the country are already experiencing freshwater shortages.  More people living in an area means a higher demand for freshwater, such as in the southwestern and southeastern U.S., and freshwater is sorely needed for agriculture in California.
* Game Animals - More people potentially means more hunting, reducing the amount of wild animals that can be harvested for food and other uses.  Also, human encroachment into natural areas reduces the animal population.
* Fish -  Sources of protein that live in lakes, rivers, and in the ocean.  A higher population means a higher demand for fish.  Many areas that traditionally provided seafood for people have seen their fish stocks drop from over-fishing.
* The Environment's Ability to Absorb Pollution - It's an overlooked resource, but arguably this is a resource.
WhipperSnapper (talk) 00:30, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we add a section to cover the invisible Malthusian Costs of Immigration? 

message: The 1st citation in this article is to fair us, a website which apparently "The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies... as a hate group with ties to white supremacist groups" according to its wiki. Maybe this citation should be replaced or looked at more closely. 2601:192:417F:FB40:D641:1337:4960:7A00 (talk) 22:15, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fairus citation