Illegal Immigration Could Cost Taxpayers Trillions

10News.com (San Diego, CA) : 8/2/2006 Excerpt: Future costs for illegal immigrants in the United States will reach a half a trillion dollars, a Heritage Foundation researcher said Wednesday at congressional hearing in San Diego.

The influx of illegal immigrants has effectively "imported about 10 million high school dropouts into the United States," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow in welfare and family issues for the Washington, D.C. based think tank. The National Academy of Sciences estimated that each immigrant will result in a $100,000 net annual cost to taxpayers. Rector said once illegal immigrants become citizens they can bring family members into the country, straining education and health care budgets. "This Senate bill will become the largest expansion of the welfare system in 30 years and it's the wrong thing to do."

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the committee's chairman, said hospitals in the Southwestern U.S. are losing $190 million annually per year for uncompensated health care from illegal immigrants.
Nineteen percent of federal inmates are not citizens..

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said illegal immigration tears at the moral and economic fabric of the country. ... 12 percent of the 10.2 million residents of Los Angeles County are illegal immigrants. Thirty percent of public health patients in the county are illegal immigrants, he testified.