How Costly Are Immigrants?

     Do immigrants leech off our economy and threaten our culture? That’s what many believe. But look at my grandparents. Three of them were among the homeless, tempest-tost who knocked on Lady Liberty’s door. They arrived dirt poor, yet their descendants increased our gross national product and improved society by becoming educators, agriculturalists, pharmacists, a hospital administrator, interior designers, writers, business entrepreneurs, a therapist, a pianist, a pastor, a computer specialist, a photographer, a missionary, and an award-winning college baseball coach (can’t get much more American than that). They weren’t a drain on our country; they were a gain.
      Yet some claim that the new wave of immigrants are alien riffraff bottom feeding off our economy. Not according to recent studies:
     * Crime? Immigrants, including undocumented ones, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans, according to the Cato Institute.  It’s no surprise then that states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants often have lower crime rates, as the journal “Criminology” reported.
     * Economics? Both authorized and unauthorized immigration boosts wages and reduces unemployment for native-born Americans. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that the children of immigrants are “among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population, contributing more in taxes than either their parents or the rest of the native-born population.”
     Even destitute refugees don’t suck our coffers empty. A report commissioned by President Trump determined that refugees brought in $63 billion more in tax revenue during the past decade than they cost the government.
     So let’s drop the fear hysteria. It’s not only humanitarian to welcome these newcomers, it enhances our country because they are law-abiding, economic engines.
​     Immigrants aren’t costly, they’re priceless.