Immigration Reform Caucus

Report estimates county's illegal immigrant cost at $256 million in 2006

North County Times

September 9, 2007

san diego — SAN DIEGO ---- A county-commissioned study estimated that illegal immigrants directly cost the county of San Diego and taxpayers $101 million last year, and indirectly cost an additional $155 million in unpaid medical care.

However, the estimates in the $40,000 study, which the county Board of Supervisors voted to pursue in May 2006, were largely based on anecdotal information rather than hard statistics.

Supervisors sought the study in the hope of presenting federal officials with a bill for the costs of illegal immigration in the border county of San Diego. Horn and the rest of the board say local governments and taxpayers should not have to pay extra for a "failed federal immigration policy."

The study itself, compiled by San Diego State University professor John Weeks and former Chula Vista Police Department border studies expert David Eisenberg, said the study "must be viewed with a certain amount of caution" because its estimates were based on anecdotal evidence.

Weeks said there aren't many hard numbers about the costs of illegal immigration because most agencies don't track residency status. In some cases they are forbidden to do so by federal funding laws. Weeks said estimates in the report were largely formulated by multiplying the budgets for county departments by 10 percent ---- a figure county officials said was a "reasonable" measure of illegal immigrants' cost to their programs.

The report estimated that illegal immigrants cost the county roughly $75 million in criminal justice costs, such as jailing and prosecuting, and $26 million in health, social and other costs.

Horn, who pushed hard for the study to be done, said Friday that he planned to use the report to lobby the federal government, through Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, for help. He also said he thought the $255 million figure was too low ---- in part because he thought it underestimated the illegal immigrant population and did not take education costs into account.

"The next step is to get Bilbray to change the rules and get the hard numbers," Horn said. "I think they're extremely conservative."

Bilbray, who campaigned for the study along with Horn when both were running for election in 2006, issued a written statement saying he was eager to work with Horn to get federal reimbursement.

"When it comes to illegal immigration," Bilbray said in his statement, "the federal government is the biggest deadbeat dad in America."

Bilbray retained his seat after a campaign based on fighting illegal immigration.

In 2001, county supervisors released a study compiled by researchers for the United States-Mexico Border Counties Coalition that said the county spent more than $50.3 million in 1999 on criminal justice and medical care for illegal immigrants.

But in 1994, a report by the Urban Institute suggested that immigrants generate an overall surplus of $25 million to $30 million in taxes.

The new study also looked just at what costs illegal immigrants create, and did not try to look for benefits that illegal immigrants might bring the county.

"I'm not even asking that question," Horn said. "I spend taxpayer money for taxpayer services. That's my charge. My issue with the federal and state government is that they're asking me to spend my taxpayer money on people who don't even belong here."

Pedro Rios, San Diego director of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker human rights organization, said he was afraid the study would be used to promote "anti-immigrant sentiment."

"Some of the more extreme groups, vigilantes and others, generally maintain a position that migrants harm the general society," Rios said.

Weeks, meanwhile, said he hoped others would try to study what benefits illegal immigrants provided to the community, and that it was a relevant calculation to the discussion of illegal-immigrant costs.

In his study, Weeks wrote that illegal immigrants obviously contribute in a variety of economic ways by spending money and providing services.

"My personal perspective is neither pro- or anti-immigration," Weeks said Friday. "The target audience for this report is the federal government ---- not to play into the arguments about whether immigration is good or bad, but to keep the need for some reasonable immigration reform legislation on the table."

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.