White: Every State is a Border State
By Shad White
Last year Mississippi witnessed a tragic and horrific event when it was reported that an illegal immigrant, who had previously been deported, allegedly raped a 10-year-old boy twice. Unfortunately for Mississippi and the country at large, stories like these seem to be more and more common.
Whether a crime like that happens in your neighborhood or not, the truth is that everyone is affected.
Analysts in my office took a look at data from multiple different federal agencies in order to estimate that there are at least 22,000 illegal immigrants living in the state of Mississippi. To put this in perspective, this means that there are more illegal immigrants in Mississippi then there are citizens of the city of Pascagoula—and that’s a very conservative estimate.
Once the analysts in my office reviewed spending on education, healthcare, and public safety, we were able to estimate that the state of Mississippi loses out on over $100 million in taxpayer funds every year providing services to illegal immigrants.
According to data my analysts gathered from the University of Mississippi’s Population Studies Center, approximately 2,500 illegal immigrants attend our K-12 public schools. Many of these students qualify as low-income and as English Language Learners (ELL). Thanks to the new Mississippi Student Funding Formula, ELL students receive 15% more funding than the base student cost and low-income students receive 30% more funding. Using this data, my analysts were able to determine that Mississippi taxpayers spend at least $25 million to educate illegal immigrants every year, and the number could be much higher.
Healthcare is the biggest driver of taxpayer spending on illegal immigrants. Federal law requires that everyone in the United States is guaranteed emergency medical treatment. This means that illegal immigrants who have no health insurance can receive medical care simply by showing up to the hospitals and asking for emergency medical services. My office estimates that around 50% of illegals in the state have no health insurance and that 38% of them rely on emergency medical services for primary care. That means taxpayers spend around $77 million on healthcare costs for illegal immigrants and their children every year.
Finally, we took a look at the public safety costs related to illegal immigration. Our Mississippi prison systems are forced to keep illegal immigrants who commit crimes detained until federal law enforcement comes to take them off of our hands (if they come at all). Using available data, analysts project that Mississippi taxpayers spend at least $1.7 million annually incarcerating illegals. And that’s not to mention the cost of the extra burden that our law enforcement agencies face while policing Mississippi streets as a result of illegal immigration. That cost is nearly impossible to calculate but still hurts taxpayers.
A report from the Auditor’s office detailing the cost of illegal immigration isn’t new. Previous auditors conducted similar studies. Today, this issue is as important as ever. Every state in our country is now a border state. All of this money that we spend every year on illegal immigrants could be spent improving teacher pay, repairing roads and bridges, or we could just return this money back to the taxpayers through a tax cut. If our federal leaders don’t start treating this problem with the seriousness that it deserves, then Mississippians will continue to lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars.
Shad White is the 42nd State Auditor of Mississippi. Opinions expressed are those solely of the author.
