Cost of Illegal Immigration in Tennessee

The cost of illegal immigration in Tennessee involves education, health care, law enforcement activities, and other government services. Although many illegal immigrants in the workforce pay taxes, fiscal expenditures surpass the tax revenues, according to research.

An analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform found that the burden on Tennessee taxpayers for illegal immigration was $285 million in 2007. The figure for state and local expenditures jumped to $547 million in Tennessee during FAIR’s 2013 study on the burden of illegal immigration on U.S. taxpayers.

The 2007 study was based on an estimate of 100,000 illegal immigrants in Tennessee. Taxpayers spent some $228 million on the education for children of illegal immigrants, FAIR reported. An additional $27 million was spent on English instruction classes for many of these children.

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An estimated $22.7 million a year was spent on medical costs for health care provided to illegal aliens. The estimate did not take into account higher than average medical bills or insurance costs needed to deal with uncompensated costs to hospitals and doctors.

Incarceration for illegal immigrants cost state and local prisons about $5.7 million a year, according to the 2007 figures. The costs focused on prisons and not law enforcement and judicial costs.

Figures by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy show unauthorized immigrants paid $133 million in state and local taxes in 2010, but the figures fall short of the 2007 and 2013 studies by FAIR on state expenditures for illegal immigration, the American Immigration Council reported. Legal status for illegal immigrants would pay the state about $141 million in state and local taxes.

Unauthorized immigrants accounted for 2.2 percent of the state’s population, or 140,000 people, and 3.1 percent of the state’s workforce, or 95,000 workers, in 2010, according to the Pew Research Center.

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Education for immigrants in general has improved for Tennessee. The number of immigrants with college degrees increased by more than 84 percent between 2000 and 2011, the Migration Policy Institute reported.

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