Immigrants cost state and local governments nearly $31 million in 2010, but if consumer spending and other factors are considered, the state pockets seven dollars to every one spent on its newly arrived residents, according to a study released this week.
The nuance is important, say researchers and officials with the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, which commissioned the study.
“The fiscal costs need to beseen in the much larger context of the positive impacts of immigration,” said Stephen Appold, a University of North Carolina researcher.
The Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville also participated in the three-volume report, which was based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in 2010.
The study defined immigrants as “the foreign-born,that is, those who were not U.S. citizens at birth. This includes naturalized U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (immigrants), temporary immigrants (such as students), humanitarian migrants (such as refugees), and the unauthorized - that is, people illegally present in the United States.”
Using estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the study determined that about 42 percent of immigrants are in Arkansas illegally - higher than the national average of 29 percent.
But about half of the state’s immigrants lived in another state before moving to Arkansas, researchers said.
Arkansas governments spent about $555 million in 2010 providing essential services to immigrants in the state legally and illegally, which as a group make up about 5 percent of the state’s population.
Immigrants contributed about $524.4 million in taxes, the study found.
Most native-born demographic groups also consume more in state and local services than they provide in taxes, researchers said.
But the net economic benefit to the state approaches $4 billion, after subtracting money immigrants sent home, saved or used to pay interest on mortgages and other loans, researchers found.
Immigrant activity during the recession probably helpedsoften the economic blow, said Randy Capps of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank specializing in immigration issues.
The study follows a similar one in 2007, also commissioned by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. One of the new study’s three volumes focuses on the evolving work force and family demographics among immigrants, the second is on the economic benefits and costs of immigration and the third is on the Marshallese community concentrated in Northwest Arkansas.
The study notes that the growth rate of Arkansas’ immigrant population in the 2000-2010 period ranked fourth among the states.
About two-thirds of the state’s approximately 150,000 immigrants in 2010 were Hispanic, the largest group being from Mexico, which made up 51 percent of the total immigrant population, the study found.
Most of the of the taxpayer money spent on foreign-born residents is used to educate their children, who are overwhelmingly U.S. citizens, the researchers found.
As Arkansas immigrants are settling in the state and raising children here, it is good public policy to support them, Capps said.
“It’s important for Arkansas to make investments in immigrants,” he said.
Part of that investment should be a college degree at an affordable price, Joel Anderson, chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said at a Capitol pressconference about the study Tuesday.
It would be “enlightened self-interest” to offer in-state tuition at state universities to Arkansas students who are in this country illegally, he said, acknowledging that “there are sentiments pro and con” in the Legislature.
Past attempts to offer instate tuition for students who graduated from Arkansas high schools but are likely in the state illegally have failed.
Contacted after Tuesday’s press conference, Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, said he and Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, plan to work together to introduce a bill offering in-state tuition to Arkansas students without proof of American citizenship or legal residency.
“I think the more people talk about it, people will learn more and realize it’s a good deal for Arkansas,” Leding said.
Rogers Republican Debra Hobbs said she has strong reservations about in-state tuition for people whose parents brought them to the country illegally, but she’s willing to listen.
“I think there needs to be a healthy discussion where one side is not castigated for their stand,” Hobbs said.
Republicans might be more open to the idea, she said, after a presidential election in which President Barack Obama was re-elected with strong support from Hispanics and other immigrants.
“Republicans nationally are being seen as having to make friends with Hispanics. It’ll beinteresting to see how it plays out in Arkansas,” Hobbs said.
The state’s business community depends on a “strong, steady flow” of immigrants, said Randy Zook, president and chief executive officer of the state Chamber of Commerce.
“The long and the short of this study is ... we need them,” he said.
The report should “counter the less productive point of view that we sometimes get involved with around this subject,” Zook said at the press conference.
Jeannie Burlsworth, founder of Secure Arkansas, a group that has advocated for stricter controls on immigration, contends that the Chamber of Commerce and its members have a vested interest in cheap, unregulated labor.
“I’m not interested in these reports that try to slant it,” she said. “The Chamber of Commerce, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. They’re for open borders. That’s why they’re going to give such a glowing report.”
The report doesn’t fully address the effect of illegal immigration, Burlsworth said.
“They mix legal and illegal aliens. We need a breakdown,” she said.
The costs of emergencyroom care alone amounts to “forced redistribution of wealth,” Burlsworth said.
The report found that 63 percent of Hispanic immigrants didn’t have health insurance. The Affordable Care Act, the new health-care law, doesn’t include services for illegal aliens.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/10/2013