Illegal Immigrant Numbers
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
One letter writer wanted us to "publish expenses borne by the taxpaying public in support of the illegal immigrant population in our community."
Frankly, it would be easier to engrave the text of "War and Peace" on the head of a pin.[[In-content Ad]]Sure, it would be great to know that number. But first one would have to know how many illegal immigrants there are in our county.
How, do you suppose, would one arrive at that elusive number?
Consider for a moment that immigration "experts" set the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. at precisely somewhere between 7 million and 20 million.
The experts call those ballpark figures. Yeah, they're ballpark alright, if the ballpark is the size of the Grand Canyon.
So if the greatest minds in immigration can't pin down a number any better than that, how in the world are we in the county going to come up with an accurate number?
We're not.
All we can do is guess. So if you want numbers, we'll kick some numbers around just for fun. But please understand, this is in no way meant to be some "official" accounting.
One place where we can make educated guesses about the number of immigrants is in schools.
We know, for example, that there are 996 English as a second language students in Warsaw Schools.
But just because you're an ESL student doesn't mean you're an illegal immigrant.
Quite the contrary. The vast majority of ESL students were born in the U.S.
Of course, they may be children of illegal immigrants, but there's no way to know because provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act prohibit schools from asking the immigration status of students or their parents.
So how many of those 996 ESL students are illegals or children of illegals?
There is really no way to know. But for the sake of argument, let's take the absolute worst case scenario and wrongly assume that each and every ESL student is illegal or the child of an illegal even though we know that's not the case.
The proposed budget for Warsaw Schools in 2008 is around $60 million. There are roughly 7,000 students. Doing the math, one could say, not particularly accurately, that Warsaw spends $8,500 per student.
According to the most recent census data, there are 4,794 households in Warsaw. Hmm, but Warsaw School District comprises lots more households than just Warsaw.
So let's extrapolate.
Census data also tells us that 26 percent of the population of Warsaw is made up of children under age 18. Let's assume that percentage holds up throughout the Warsaw school district.
Let's eliminate 1 percent of those because they're less than school age. (There probably are more than 1 percent under age 5, but 25 percent is a nice round number to work with, OK?)
So if 25 percent of the population of the Warsaw school district are kids and there are 7,000 kids in Warsaw schools, that means the total population served by the Warsaw school district is around 28,000.
That seems close to right when you consider the district encompasses places like Silver Lake, Claypool, Atwood, Etna Green, Leesburg, Tippy Lake, etc.
Now we divide 28,000 by 2.49, which the census tells us is the average household size in Warsaw. This tells us there are 11,245 households in the Warsaw school district.
Wrongly assuming there are 1,000 illegals or children of illegals in Warsaw schools and multiplying that by the not particularly accurate $8,500 per student, we find that Warsaw schools may or may not be spending $8.5 million educating illegals. That's the most Warsaw could spend in my crudely inaccurate equation. We know it has to be less than that.
That comes to about $750 per household per year if you choose to believe any of this.
Let's say that only half of the ESL students are illegal or children of illegals. That would be $375 per household per year.
So now let's wander on down to the welfare department, or the Division of Families and Children as it's called these days.
How many illegals are collecting benefits like food stamps?
Well, the short answer is none.
You see, the department verifies Social Security numbers and immigration status before doling out benefits.
If the department knows somebody is illegal, they don't report them to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but they don't give them any benefits either.
So all those anecdotal stories you hear about illegal immigrants collecting welfare checks are bogus.
The children of illegal aliens are a different story. They qualify for benefits if they were born in the U.S.
But the department doesn't track those numbers so there is no way to know how many children of illegals are obtaining benefits.
If we widen the scope to the entire nation, estimates are plentiful.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, "the net expense to the taxpayer from illegal immigration is currently at least $45 billion."
Once again, we are in the giant ballpark, of course.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume they're right.
There are 110 million households in the U.S. That would make the average cost of immigration $409 per household per year.
How accurate is that number? I have no idea.
But sorry, folks, that's as good as it gets.
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One letter writer wanted us to "publish expenses borne by the taxpaying public in support of the illegal immigrant population in our community."
Frankly, it would be easier to engrave the text of "War and Peace" on the head of a pin.[[In-content Ad]]Sure, it would be great to know that number. But first one would have to know how many illegal immigrants there are in our county.
How, do you suppose, would one arrive at that elusive number?
Consider for a moment that immigration "experts" set the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. at precisely somewhere between 7 million and 20 million.
The experts call those ballpark figures. Yeah, they're ballpark alright, if the ballpark is the size of the Grand Canyon.
So if the greatest minds in immigration can't pin down a number any better than that, how in the world are we in the county going to come up with an accurate number?
We're not.
All we can do is guess. So if you want numbers, we'll kick some numbers around just for fun. But please understand, this is in no way meant to be some "official" accounting.
One place where we can make educated guesses about the number of immigrants is in schools.
We know, for example, that there are 996 English as a second language students in Warsaw Schools.
But just because you're an ESL student doesn't mean you're an illegal immigrant.
Quite the contrary. The vast majority of ESL students were born in the U.S.
Of course, they may be children of illegal immigrants, but there's no way to know because provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act prohibit schools from asking the immigration status of students or their parents.
So how many of those 996 ESL students are illegals or children of illegals?
There is really no way to know. But for the sake of argument, let's take the absolute worst case scenario and wrongly assume that each and every ESL student is illegal or the child of an illegal even though we know that's not the case.
The proposed budget for Warsaw Schools in 2008 is around $60 million. There are roughly 7,000 students. Doing the math, one could say, not particularly accurately, that Warsaw spends $8,500 per student.
According to the most recent census data, there are 4,794 households in Warsaw. Hmm, but Warsaw School District comprises lots more households than just Warsaw.
So let's extrapolate.
Census data also tells us that 26 percent of the population of Warsaw is made up of children under age 18. Let's assume that percentage holds up throughout the Warsaw school district.
Let's eliminate 1 percent of those because they're less than school age. (There probably are more than 1 percent under age 5, but 25 percent is a nice round number to work with, OK?)
So if 25 percent of the population of the Warsaw school district are kids and there are 7,000 kids in Warsaw schools, that means the total population served by the Warsaw school district is around 28,000.
That seems close to right when you consider the district encompasses places like Silver Lake, Claypool, Atwood, Etna Green, Leesburg, Tippy Lake, etc.
Now we divide 28,000 by 2.49, which the census tells us is the average household size in Warsaw. This tells us there are 11,245 households in the Warsaw school district.
Wrongly assuming there are 1,000 illegals or children of illegals in Warsaw schools and multiplying that by the not particularly accurate $8,500 per student, we find that Warsaw schools may or may not be spending $8.5 million educating illegals. That's the most Warsaw could spend in my crudely inaccurate equation. We know it has to be less than that.
That comes to about $750 per household per year if you choose to believe any of this.
Let's say that only half of the ESL students are illegal or children of illegals. That would be $375 per household per year.
So now let's wander on down to the welfare department, or the Division of Families and Children as it's called these days.
How many illegals are collecting benefits like food stamps?
Well, the short answer is none.
You see, the department verifies Social Security numbers and immigration status before doling out benefits.
If the department knows somebody is illegal, they don't report them to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but they don't give them any benefits either.
So all those anecdotal stories you hear about illegal immigrants collecting welfare checks are bogus.
The children of illegal aliens are a different story. They qualify for benefits if they were born in the U.S.
But the department doesn't track those numbers so there is no way to know how many children of illegals are obtaining benefits.
If we widen the scope to the entire nation, estimates are plentiful.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, "the net expense to the taxpayer from illegal immigration is currently at least $45 billion."
Once again, we are in the giant ballpark, of course.
But for the sake of argument, let's assume they're right.
There are 110 million households in the U.S. That would make the average cost of immigration $409 per household per year.
How accurate is that number? I have no idea.
But sorry, folks, that's as good as it gets.
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