ELKHART — Gauging the impact of undocumented immigration to the United States — pro or con — is tricky business.
Ask 100 people and you’ll likely get 100 different answers.
Here are some of the points, sometimes contradictory, brought up by immigrant advocates, foes of undocumented immigration, scholars and others:
Taxes, the cost to government: The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank, estimates undocumented immigrants in Indiana pay $89.3 million a year in state and local sales, excise, property and income taxes, a figure that would jump to $117 million if they were granted legal status. Nationally, undocumented immigrants pay $11.6 billion a year in taxes, or an effective tax rate of 8 percent, which compares to 5.4 percent for the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers.
A 2013 report from the Social Security Administration estimated that undocumented immigrants paid $13 billion in Social Security taxes in 2010, but only received $1 billion in return, a net gain of $12 billion for the system.
A 2007 Congressional Budget Office study estimates that the net impact of undocumented immigrants on state and local budgets “is most likely modest.”
On the other side, Texas officials, in suing to halt implementation of President Obama’s measure to grant certain undocumented immigrants legal status, maintain that undocumented immigration costs the state $59 million a year in extra education costs. It creates another $117 million more in health care costs, said the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform in a 2013 report determined the net annual cost of illegal immigration to be $29 billion at the federal level and $84 billion at the state and local level. FAIR seeks more immigration controls and, in the report, expresses opposition to measures to legalize the status of undocumented immigrants.