California's nearly 3 million illegal residents add between $4 billion and $6 billion in incarceration, education and medical costs, according to state estimates.
But they also pay local sales taxes -- and often have Social Security and federal income taxes withheld from their paychecks. Across the U.S., illegal residents pumped $12 billion into the Social Security system in 2007, according to that agency's estimates.
That money goes to federal rather than local governments, whose short-term costs related to illegal immigrants may be larger than the revenues, according to most experts.
So what to do during a budget crisis? Bar hospital doors to illegal residents? Kick them out of schools? Toughen up the border? Maintain the status quo?
Anti-illegal immigration activists are campaigning for an initiative to cut off welfare payments to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, even though those children are eligible because they are U.S. citizens. Doing so would save $640 million per year, according to the state.
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