Financial Blacklisting to Censor Conservatives. Master Card, Visa and Discover and working behind the scenes to censor us by Financial Blacklisting.
Wake up PATRIOTS!!!
.. the "EVIL EMPIRE WITHIN AMERICA" have used Hollywood to Blacklist Conservative Ideas.. they use the Print Media, and Social media and The News Media to Censor us! They use the schools and Universities to to Indoctrinate the Next Generation....Now its the next layer back. Financial Networks. Don't ya'll get it? We are losing the battle because we refuse to engage!
TIME TO FIGHT BACK ON THE STREETS!
It is the most totalitarian form of blacklisting: not just to be
prevented from speaking on a university campus, or to be kicked off
social media, but to be shut out of the entire financial system. That is
the terrifying new threat to freedom that western societies must now
contend with.
YET WE DO NOTHING SUBSTANTIVE THAN TO WHINE OR POST STUFF LIKE THIS. ITS TIME FOR MORE AGGRESSIVE MAIN STREET TACTICS!
Financial blacklisting doesn’t just rob you of a chance to spread
your message: it robs you of your ability to do business, your
livelihood, your very means of functioning in a capitalist society.
Thanks to the encroachment of progressive ideology into the financial
industry — including major credit card companies like Visa, Discover,
and Mastercard — it has now become a reality.
Left Leaning financial platforms — like Visa and MasterCard —work with Socialist Entities to deny service to customers for political reasons.
Since then, financial blacklisting has only gotten worse. In August, Mastercard and Discover deplatformed conservative and Islam critic Robert Spencer. In the same month, Visa and Mastercard
ceased service to David Horowitz. While credit card processing service
to Horowitz was eventually restored, Spencer remains financially
blacklisted. Crowdfunding platforms like Patreon, which allow online content
creators to collect donations from their supporters, are frequently cast
as the primary villains in financial blacklisting.
Patreon’s recent ban
of YouTuber Carl Benjamin, better known by his moniker Sargon of Akkad,
triggered a crisis for the platform.
Both donors and creators — including prominent atheist Sam Harris —
quit the platform in protest, while Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin
pledged to create an alternative platform that is pro-free speech. But Patreon and other crowdfunding platforms are not the real
villains. They are dependent on the whims of the credit card companies,
something that was already apparent in August when Mastercard forced
them to withdraw service from Robert Spencer. We now know that the
credit card companies were also a factor in Patreon’s decision to boot
Benjamin.
YouTuber and Patreon creator Matt Christiansen recently released a transcript
of his conversation with Jacqueline Hart of Patreon about Benjamin’s
ban. Hart frankly admits that the sensibilities of credit card companies
play a key role in Patreon’s decisions. Here’s an excerpt of that transcript (emphasis ours):
JACQUELINE: The
problem is is Patreon takes payments. And while we are obviously
supportive of the first amendment, there are other things that we have
to consider. Our mission is to fund the creative class. In order to
accomplish that mission we have to build a community of creators that
are comfortable sharing a platform, and if we allow certain types of
speech that some people would call free speech, then only creators that
use Patreon that don’t mind their branding associated with that kind of
speech would be those who use Patreon and we fail at our mission. But
secondly as a membership platform, payment processing is one of the core
value propositions that we have. Payment processing depends on our ability to use the global payment network, and they have rules for what they will process. MATT: Are you telling me that this was Patreon’s decision then, or someone pressured you into this? JACQUELINE: No – this was entirely Patreon’s decision. MATT: Well then I don’t understand passing the buck off to somebody else. JACQUELINE: No, I’m not
passing the buck off. The thing is we have guidelines, but I’m trying
to explain, #1 it is our mission to fund the creative class and obviously some people may not want to be associated. MATT: Well if it’s your mission, then payment processors are irrelevant. It’s your mission. That’s what you’re pursuing. JACQUELINE: We’re not visa and mastercard ourselves – we can’t just make the rules. That’s what I’m saying – there is an extra layer there.
This “extra layer” places platforms like Patreon in an impossible
position: abandon free speech or lose your ability to process payments.
That’s also why so many free-speech alternatives to Patreon have failed:
FreeStartr, Hatreon, MakerSupport, and SubscribeStar all tried to offer
a more open platform, and were promptly dumped by the credit card
companies. All are unable to do business. This exposes the emptiness of establishment conservative arguments
about the free market. Those who oppose Silicon Valley censorship aren’t
allowed to just build their own alternative platforms. They must build
their own global payment processing infrastructure to have any hope of
restoring free speech online. That, or they must find a way to stop Visa, Mastercard and Discover
from taking advice from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
and Color of Change. The former was allegedly responsible for the
blacklisting of Robert Spencer, while the latter claims to have removed 158 funding sources
from “white supremacist sites” — although as the group won’t list what
those sites are, we don’t know if they really are “white supremacist.”
The far left typically includes regular Trump supporters under the
label. Another thing the credit card companies will have to avoid — listening to the New York Times, which is currently pressuring them to blacklist gun purchasers. The only other option is to find an alternative to Visa, MasterCard,
and Discover that is indifferent about American social justice politics.
There’s only one card which has a similar level of global coverage — China’s UnionPay.
It remains to be seen if a company at the whim of Chinese Communists is
better than Visa, Discover, and Mastercard — all of which currently
appear to be at the whim of American communists.
ITS TIME TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE VILLAINS BEHIND THE VEIL.. Conservatives have long been the target of shadowbans, biased algorithms, and account bans
on social media. Not content with silencing their voices online, the
left now wants to stop the right from using the web to fundraise. Thanks
to the increasing willingness of online fundraising platforms and
payment processors to ban clients for political reasons, they are
getting their way. One of the most popular fundraising platforms is Patreon, a site that
allows users to collect monthly recurring donations from their
supporters. With the decline of ad revenue
on platforms like YouTube, Patreon has emerged as an important and
effective tool for online content creators to earn a living. In some
cases, it can take little more than a hundred fans contributing set
amounts per month for a creator to support themselves full-time. In theory, this creates an environment similar to that of talk radio
in the 1980s: a decentralized ecosystem where new creators can quickly
establish an independent support base, without relying on gatekeepers in
the establishment media. With only their fans to answer to, as opposed
to controversy-shy advertisers, it should be the perfect formula for
free expression. There’s just one problem — Patreon itself. Like the rest of Silicon
Valley, Patreon has decided it wants to be more than just a neutral
platform, and now routinely cuts off income from content creators for
political reasons. Chief among them is “hate speech”, which Patreon says
it does not tolerate on its platform. It has used “hate speech” as a
justification to ban a number of figures on the far-right, including
white nationalist Jason Kessler. But although the alt-right is shunned
by most, including Breitbart News, the idea that politics should dictate whether someone is allowed to access financial services is even more controversial. As is often the case, banning extremists was the start of a slippery
slope. Patreon’s purge quickly escalated beyond the alt-right to target
independent conservative journalists. The latest example is YouTuber and
author Brittany Pettibone, who was banned from the platform last month.
Patreon cited her
support for the European identitarian organization Generation Identity,
a group Patreon claims is a “violent organization.” (The organization
explicitly disavows political violence.) Patreon also banned the independent journalist Lauren Southern in
2017 over her work exposing globalist NGOs assisting the illegal
trafficking of persons into Europe via the Mediterranean. Patreon said
her work could “cause loss of life” by stopping the work of NGO “rescue
vessels” — but migrant deaths in the Mediterranean actually fell by 40 percent
as attempted crossings declined in the wake of her reporting. Also, if
interfering with the illegal activities of NGO vessels in the
Mediterranean is unacceptable to Patreon, they should make it clear that
the governments of Italy and Malta, which now bar NGO ships from their shores, aren’t welcome on the platform either. Double Standards In the bans documented above, Patreon used tenuous, insufficiently
supported accusations of “violence” to suspend services to
right-wingers. But with the exception of one
token ban against It’s Going Down, a far-left site that encourages and
celebrates political violence, the platform does not appear to apply its
rules to the left with the same level of strictness.
British left-winger Mike Stuchbery currently collects donations from Patreon. Yet he has repeatedly encouraged and supported violence on his Twitter account, most recently defending
an incident in which a teenage Trump supporter was attacked and robbed
in a Whataburger restaurant for wearing a MAGA hat. Although he later
backtracked on those statements, Stuchbery has also said that Trump supporters are the modern-day equivalent of Nazi brownshirts and that Nazis should be punched. Patreon insists that Generation Identity, which publicly disavows
violence, is violent, and went so far as to ban Brittanny Pettibone
simply for expressing support for the group. But Stuchbery, who uses
Twitter to openly defend violence, is allowed to continue using Patreon. It’s not hard to find more examples like Stuchbery. Heidi Culliman is
a far-left author who has over 200 supporters on Patreon. She has also called her member of congress a Nazi, has called the President and the current U.S. administration Nazis, and, you guessed it, has called for punching Nazis. When
people say the President is a Nazi, and that Nazis should be punched,
that isn’t just a problem for Patreon — it’s a problem for the Secret
Service. Maybe Stuchbery, Culliman, and other violence-supporters who collect
Patreon donations might clarify that they only want actual white
supremacists like Richard Spencer to be punched, and not the President
(they haven’t yet, by the way). But you don’t get a pass to punch
someone like Spencer just because they’re morally wrong. Punching actual
white supremacists, unless they punch you first, is still unprovoked
violence, and advocating for it is still against the law, as well as
Patreon’s policies (if they were enforced consistently.) Patreon’s bias can also be seen in its approach to Antifa, a far-left
organization that, much like Stuchbery and Culliman, supports the use
of violence against people they determine to be “fascists.” As you might
expect, those are frequently just ordinary Trump supporters and
conservatives. Antifa’s rampages at pro-Trump events, where random acts
of violence are accompanied by widespread looting and damage to private
property, have in the past caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Last year, an Antifa member pled guilty to plotting an acid attack on Trump supporters during the Presidential inauguration. The U.S. government isn’t keen on these self-appointed fascist-fighters, and has categorized Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. Yet it’s a domestic terrorist organization that is still allowed on Patreon. A cursory search of Patreon reveals at least six [1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6]
pages, some of them boasting dozens of regular contributors, which are
affiliated with Antifa, express their support for Antifa, or display the
movement’s symbol, the red-and-white anarcho-communist flag. One of these pages, LibCom.org, defended
violent attacks on German police with glass bottles and rocks during
the 2017 G20 protests in Hamburg as “large-scale resistance” and “basic
self-defense” via a blog named “Victory of the People.” True to the
Antifa designation as domestic terrorists, LibCom also published a story
celebrating
the sabotage of U.S. army materials. Patreon, which takes a cut from
the site’s donations, is directly profiting from this material. Patreon is also directly profiting from the following image, which Antifa California is distributing through the platform as a reward to supporters: (archive link) The image of a bike lock is a reference to Eric Clanton, the left-wing professor and Antifa member accused of assaulting a Trump supporter with a bike lock in April 2017. Clanton was arrested on assault charges, and faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted. Patreon, in other words, allows Antifa to glorify a real act of
violence for which someone was arrested and charge. Meanwhile, Lauren
Southern was banned because of a tenuous and ultimately debunked theory
that her actions might cause harm. Patreon’s double standards go beyond its inability to clamp down on
left-wing support for violence. In February, Patreon banned the account
of Jeremy Hambly, a critic of the incursion of progressivism into the
community associated with the popular card game Magic the Gathering
(yes, the culture wars now extend to card games — read more about it here).
Patreon said they banned Hambly for “doxing,” or the release of a
person’s private information online, a charge Hambly denies. Whether the charge is true or false — and the Southern incident
suggests Patreon is disingenuous in its allegations of rule-breaking
against the right — the Hambly ban again reveals Patreon’s
inconsistency. The platform has for years refused to take action against
Randi Harper, a serial bully who poses as an “anti-abuse” activist, but
who herself has a long, well-documented
track record of abusing others. This extends to doxing, which Harper
has unapologetically used as an intimidation tactic. She once revealed
the CEO of a debt collection agency’s home phone number, and threatened
to release those of his family if the debt collectors did not stop
trying to contact her (doing their job, in other words.) Despite this
well-publicized behavior, Patreon has taken no action against Harper to
this day. Competitors? Patreon isn’t the only way to raise money on the web. There are other
fundraising platforms, including Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe,
which allow users to raise money for their projects. GoFundMe, in
particular, has emerged as a popular method for activists, who use it to
raise money for causes and campaigns. But if you’re looking for a neutral platform that doesn’t come with
the risk of a politically-motivated ban, these services are no better
than Patreon. All have publicly committed to interfering in their users’
activities if they offend the company’s progressive values. Earlier this year, Kickstarter banned
the project of a Swedish academic who was raising funds for a book
examining the statistical correlation between immigration and rape in
Sweden. The academic, Ann Heberlein, said she started the project
because the Swedish government no longer keeps adequate records of the
ethnic and cultural backgrounds of offenders in the country. IndieGoGo, another crowdfunding site, explicitly bans
any campaign that “promotes hate” or “promotes hate symbols and/or hate
terms on their website, as defined by the Anti-defamation league.” (The
Anti-defamation league, which has previously blamed Trump supporters for rising anti-semitism, includes the internet meme Pepe the Frog on their list of “hate symbols.”) IndieGoGo also has a blanket ban on crowdfunding for “weapons, ammunition, and related accessories.” GoFundMe also takes sides politically. It deleted the fundraising
campaign of a Christian-owned bakery from Oregon, which was at the time
facing a $135,000 fine for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex
wedding. GoFundMe has also deleted conservative Jamie Glazov’s
fundraiser for an anti-Sharia law tour, a campaign
to expose Hillary Clinton’s anti-Israel sentiments during the 2016
election, and a fundraiser by an organizer of the “Draw Muhammed”
contest which aimed to cover security costs for his family. PayPal and Stripe: Impassible Gatekeepers It’s not difficult to build a website. If all existing online
fundraising services have been co-opted by censor-happy progressives,
why not build competing services that don’t ban users for political
reasons? When you don’t like what’s on offer, build your own. That’s the
free-market conservative argument. But it’s not as simple as that. In order to build a fundraising platform, you need a payments
processor. And the market for payments processors is dominated by just
two companies: PayPal and Stripe. And they’re just as intolerant as the
fundraising platforms. When Lauren Southern was banned from Patreon, she did what
free-market conservatives recommended, and set up her own fundraising
platform, powered by Stripe. Then, directly after Southern hit the
headlines again over her lifetime ban from the U.K. for distributing leaflets satirizing Islam, Stripe abruptly withdrew their service. Stripe informed Southern that she was banned for violating their rules on “Prohibited Businesses and Activities”,
although they did not highlight precisely how she violated it. The list
includes a prohibition on activity that “encourages, promotes or
celebrates unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion,
disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other
immutable characteristic.” Stripe has also withdrawn services from FreeStartr, an alternative to
Patreon and GoFundMe set up by free speech maximalist Chuck Johnson.
Johnson says the platform has also been banned by PayPal. Already
notorious for freezing WikiLeaks’ account in 2011, PayPal also withdrew services from nationalist YouTuber Faith Goldy earlier this week. Because of the lack of a payment processor, all of FreeStartr’s funds
are now at risk, including a legal defense fund for jailed British
Islam critic Tommy Robinson, a support fund for South African farmers at
risk of racial violence, and income streams for various mainstream
conservatives like organizer Ali Alexander and YouTuber Ashton Whitty. Johnson says Stripe accused him of “obfuscating funds”, although the
company did not respond to a request to comment asking them to elaborate
on the allegation. Johnson also says Stripe changed their story. He says he was
initially contacted by senior Stripe employee Edwin Wee, a former
Democrat operative who previously worked for Joe Sestak and Mike
Bloomberg, who informed him that the presence of a legal defense fund
for white supremacist Richard Spencer meant that Stripe could no longer
do business with him. Because of one objectionable fund, the entire
platform had to go. “Everyone will think like, ‘oh it’s Richard Spencer, he can go f***
himself’ — but they shut down my entire business over his account,” said
Johnson, who claims his goal is to build an open, neutral platform, and
not to personally endorse the people who use it. “My position on this is simple, it’s the same position the ACLU had in Skokie.”
said Johnson in comments to Breitbart News. “Everyone has certain
rights… If they need a legal defense, and people donate to it, and all
the money’s legal, then I don’t see an issue with it. People have a
right to donate to controversial causes.”
A few weeks ago, Stripe indefinitely disabled
payouts for creators. Now, Stripe has terminated the MakerSupport
account. We’ve taken a few days to attempt to resolve this with Stripe,
but no progress has been made.
MakerSupport, another alternative to Patreon that promised to allow
creators to raise funds regardless of their political affiliations, has
effectively been destroyed after Stripe withdrew service from the
platform. MakerSupport revealed their difficulties with Stripe back in
April, before going silent. People who donated to creators through the
site were left wondering where their money had gone. That’s the brutal reality of payment processor censorship. Once a
service like Stripe decides to withdraw support for a platform,
thousands of dollars — peoples’ donations, income streams, and
livelihoods — can be left in limbo. Can a conservative competitor to Stripe or PayPal be created? Almost
certainly not. The regulatory hurdles of setting up a payments
processor, the difficulty of forging relationships with major banks, and
the complexity of the technology and scarcity of talented programmers
with experience in the field mean the operating and start-up costs are
high. A payments processor targeted at the niche market of former
Patreon users who have since been banned from the platform will not turn
a profit. Anyone willing to set one up would have to be willing to burn
a lot of money. Much like competing with Google or Apple, it’s easier
said than done. Moreover, a PayPal or Stripe competitor would still be dependent on
business relationships with banks and credit card providers, none of
which have any incentive to be first amendment friendly. MasterCard
proved that back in 2011 when they joined
a financial services boycott against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
In order to fully guarantee a politically neutral service, you would
need more than your own version of PayPal: you’d need your own bank and
your own credit card business. The existing banks can’t be relied on, that’s for sure — even
mainstream conservative causes are too controversial for them these
days. Citi, the fourth-largest bank in America, announced in March that
it would withdraw its services
from weapons and ammunition stores that refuse to accept a range of
progressive gun control demands, none of which are mandated by U.S. law.
These included prohibitions on the sale of bump stocks and
“high-capacity magazines.” A week later, an investing group claiming to
represent over $600 billion in assets urged its members to cut ties with the NRA. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was recently refused service
at a restaurant because of her position in the Trump administration.
Now imagine being refused a bank account because you won’t comply with
progressives’ gun control demands. But it’s not just conservatives who are concerned by the power of
payment processors and financial institutions to shut down political
expression. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a liberal
organization known for promoting left-wing causes like the Obama
administration’s “net neutrality” regulations, has expressed grave
misgivings at the decision of financial institutions to withdraw
services for political reasons. In detailed comments provided to Breitbart News (read them in full here), the liberal group said payment processors like PayPal have become “de facto internet censors.” “EFF is deeply concerned that payment processors are making choices
about which websites can and can’t accept payments or process
donations,” an EFF spokeswoman told Breitbart News. “This can have a
huge impact on what types of speech are allowed to flourish online.” An Existential Threat In online fundraising as in social media, the internet provides a
tremendous advantage to those who know how to use it. When allowed,
conservatives and critics of progressivism have used these platforms to
great effect. The dissident Canadian academic Jordan Peterson is
supported by over 9,500
small donors on Patreon. Memories Pizza, the Indiana-based pizza parlor
forced to close its doors after it was publicly attacked by the
establishment media for refusing to cater gay weddings, was able to reopen after its supporters raised over $800,000 via GoFundMe. As the left prepares for the 2018 midterms and the 2020 general
election, they want to ensure that only they have access to that
tremendous power. And with PayPal and Stripe withdrawing support from
politically neutral fundraising platforms, they are well on their way to
achieving that aim. Like the social media purges, this represents an
existential threat to the conservative and pro-Trump movement. Here is an expose about Mastercard!
Known
as “Interbank” and “Master Charge” from its 1966 founding through 1979,
Mastercard Incorporated is a multinational financial
services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York. It was created
by an alliance of several California banks to compete against the Bank
of America’s BankAmericard, which later became the Visa credit card
issued by Visa Inc. Mastercard’s principal business activity …
Known
as “Interbank” and “Master Charge” from its 1966 founding through 1979,
Mastercard Incorporated is a multinational financial
services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York. It was created
by an alliance of several California banks to compete against the Bank
of America’s BankAmericard, which later became the Visa credit card
issued by Visa Inc. Mastercard’s principal business activity is to
process the credit- and debit-card payments of purchasers across the
globe. Mastercard’s leadership team includes a number of individuals who feel a deep affinity for Democratic
and leftist causes, coupled with a low regard for conservatism. The
company’s President and Chief Executive Officer since 2010 has been Ajay Banga,
who previously served as the CEO of Citigroup Asia Pacific and is a
longtime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Banga gave
$22,300 to the Democratic National Committee in 2016. He also has
donated money to the political campaigns of such Democrat luminaries as Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Hillary Clinton. Banga’s ties to the Clintons are particularly noteworthy. In 2006, for instance, he pledged to give $5.5 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, the signature program of the Clinton Foundation.
Ten years later, at a “Women in the World” Summit in New York City,
Banga voiced support for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid. “You
need women who lead countries,” he said. “I hope we have one soon. You
can see where I’m going.” Banga also has cultivated significant ties to former President Barack Obama,
who in 2015 appointed him to serve on the Advisory Committee for Trade
Policy and Negotiations. The following year, Obama named Banga to the
Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. In April 2018, Michael Froman,
who previously had held several executive positions at Citigroup and
had served as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
joined Mastercard as its Vice Chairman and President of Strategic
Growth. Since 2001, he has made large political donations to high-profile Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Al Gore, John Kerry, Charles Schumer, and Barack Obama. From 1993-95, Froman served in the Bill Clinton
Administration as Director of International Economic Affairs for both
the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. And
from 1997-99, he was Chief of Staff in the Clinton Treasury Department. Froman also has a close relationship with Barack Obama. The pair
first met in the 1980s, when they both attended Harvard Law School and
worked together on the Harvard Law Review. When Obama later decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 2004, Froman, according to Politico,
“rallied immediately to the cause, advising and supporting the
candidate as he was elected to represent the state of Illinois.” Two
years after that, Froman served as an Advisory Board member for the
Obama-Biden presidential transition team. From 2009-13, he was Assistant
to the President in charge of international economic affairs. And from
2013-17, he held the title of U.S. Trade Representative, serving as
Obama’s chief adviser and negotiator on international trade and
investment issues. Another major figure at Mastercard is Seth Eisen,
who has been an executive with the company since 2010 – and its Senior
Vice President of External Communications since 2016. In the aftermath
of the August 2017 “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, where a
contingent of white nationalists clashed violently with Marxist-anarchists affiliated with Antifa,
Eisen wrote that: (a) “we’ve been made aware of websites accepting our
[Mastercard] products that could be considered as ‘hate groups’,” and
(b) “we’re working with our acquirers to shut down the use of our cards
on sites that make specific threats or incite violence.” A year later, in August 2018, Mastercard announced that it had
decided to stop processing all donations to the David Horowitz Freedom
Center (DHFC), a conservative think tank whose mission is “to defend
free societies which are under attack from enemies within and without” —
most notably, enemies aiming to advance the agendas of the radical left
and Islamic jihad. Mastercard took this action largely in response to pressure from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Color Of Change,
both of which had recently designated DHFC as an organization that
promoted “hate.” Thanks, in part, to numerous conservative organizations
and media outlets that publicly condemned Mastercard’s action, the
credit card company restored DHFC’s fundraising privileges within a few
days. Yet another key leader at Mastercard is board member Craig Calhoun,
currently a Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University,
and formerly the director of the London School of Economics and
Political Science. He contributed to the 2013 book, Does Capitalism Have a Future? Therein, he wrote
that capitalist development is commonly associated with ecological
crisis, and that capitalist economies will have to transform
dramatically if they are to have any chance of surviving.
Informational curated from www.Breitbart.com and www.Discoverthenetworks.com
Which costs more: Trump's border wall or illegal aliens and Why the Left is so vehemently against it!
U.S. taxpayers suffer $100 billion annual burden from influx
Read up!
Before you do, If you have a sane and rational mind you should ask the simple question "WHY" the "LEFT" wants illegal aliens in our country!
It Most certainly is not because they identify with the plight of the migrant class. Those mostly lower level of Society with less than a high school education ... who do not speak English and have no idea of American Culture or Constitution or Laws. Then why do you think they want them here ?
Its so plain to see.. Its right in front of you if you rationalize it. Its VOTES. The left needs "Voting blocks" .. from the 1950's The Low IQ just enfranchised desegregated Ghetto Blacks with little or no worthwhile education who despised "white America" were a guaranteed segment of the vote for the Democrat/Left. As time went by and as the Black ghetto dwellers diminished in numbers... and a stronger middle class of blacks emerged they realized they could not count on a subservient grateful Black Underclass to provide the assured 98% Democrat Vote group the Blacks had become.
The Democrat/Left needed a new group to assure them of votes over the long haul. The Asians like the Chinese and Asian Indians and The Far Easterners could not be counted on because they were more ambitious and hard working and Entrepreneurial. The Democrat/Left needed the Migrants, the poor and those who would be grateful for their help to come to America and expand the Ghetto class that was being depleted. So slowly the Democrat/Left abandoned their defense of the low skilled, lowest rung worker.. the LEGAL BLACK AND HISPANIC Workers and began a campaign to bring in as many Migrants and Illegals as they could into America through a range of schemes, including Drivers Licenses for Illegals, Free Education, Free Food, Sanctuary Cities and States, Free Health Care for Illegals.. all in exchange for their votes over the long haul.
This is why they are for "open borders" . This assures the continuous flow of illegals who will be the future of the Democrat/Left "Vote Bank" .
Who Controls the Democrat/Left? Its a Group of Rich Socialist and Uber Wealthy Oligarch Types who would like the end of America as we know it ... A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.. where All men are equal under God and Law. If they get their way, America becomes a Super Rich Socialist Oligarchy where there will be the Super Rich who each will control segments of the economy and infrastructure employing a worker class cadre who will be guaranteed a "Living wage" and medical care as long as you toe the Oligarch line and and useful to them.
Its been done before and it has failed so many times before.. but it has never been tried on a Country as wealthy and resource rich as America. We have it all. So an Oligarchy like this could succeed and prosper for 300 Years by Conservative estimates.
They will control the population, build their own walls and fences once they achieved their goals.. by which time they hope to have disarmed the population and they will be able to enforce their goal of this new form of Government on America.
That is why they find Donald Trump and this wall so dangerous to them. Its the empowerment of "WE THE PEOPLE" that they fear. They want to move us to a "Yes Massa" mentality. Only this time the "Massas" are the Oligarchs and their thought police.
Now that you have an understanding of the possible future... Know that a Border wall is a lot cheaper than allowing a Migrant Invasion..... if one is looking to protect America from becoming a Socialist Oligarchy. If the goal is to move America in to this new form of Government... the last thing you want is a wall impeding the generous flow of guaranteed votes over the long haul.
The wall represents a stoppage of the progress the Left has made and if it works it has the potential to reverse their plan that has been in the works since the 1980's.
The findings of this analysis show that if a border wall stopped a
small fraction of the illegal immigrants who are expected to come in the
next decade, the fiscal savings from having fewer illegal immigrants in
the country would be sufficient to cover the costs of the wall. This
analysis takes the likely education level of illegal border-crossers and
applies fiscal estimates developed by the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) for immigrants by education
level. NAS calculates the future fiscal balance immigrants create —
taxes paid minus costs. NAS reports fiscal balances as "net present
values", which places a lower value on future expenditures than on
current expenditures. Based on the NAS data, illegal border-crossers create an average
fiscal burden of approximately $74,722 during their lifetimes, excluding
any costs for their U.S.-born children. If a border wall stopped
between 160,000 and 200,000 illegal crossers — 9 to 12 percent of those
expected to successfully cross in the next decade — the fiscal savings
would equal the $12 to $15 billion cost of the wall.1 Among the findings:
There is agreement among researchers that illegal immigrants
overwhelmingly have modest levels of education — most have not completed
high school or have only a high school education.
There is also agreement that immigrants who come to America with
modest levels of education create significantly more in costs for
government than they pay in taxes.
A recent NAS study estimated the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid
minus services used) of immigrants by education. Averaging the cost
estimates from that study and combining them with the education levels
of illegal border-crossers shows a net fiscal drain of $74,722 per
illegal crosser.2
The above figures are only for the original illegal immigrants and do not
include any costs for their U.S.-born descendants. If we use the NAS
projections that include the descendants, the fiscal drain for
border-crossers grows to $94,391 each.
If a border wall prevented 160,000 to 200,000 illegal crossings
(excluding descendants) in the next 10 years it would be enough to pay
for the estimated $12 to $15 billion costs of the wall.
Newly released research by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)
done for the Department of Homeland Security indicates that 170,000
illegal immigrants crossed the border successfully without going through
a port of entry in 2015.3
While a significant decline in crossings from a decade ago, it still
means that there may be 1.7 million successful crossings in the next
decade. If a wall stopped just 9 to 12 percent of these crossings it
would pay for itself.
If a wall stopped half of those expected to successfully enter
illegally without going through a port of entry at the southern border
over the next 10 years, it would save taxpayers nearly $64 billion —
several times the wall's cost.
Important Caveats and Observations About These Estimates
In addition to crossing the border surreptitiously, aliens join
the illegal population primarily by overstaying a temporary visa. A
southern border wall would not address this part of the illegal flow.
A large share of the net fiscal cost of illegal immigrants is at the
state and local level, not the federal level. The costs of building the
wall will be borne by the federal government.
To create its long-term fiscal estimates for immigrants by education
level, the NAS uses the concept of "net present value" (NPV). This
concept, which is commonly used by economists, has the effect of
reducing the size of the net fiscal drain that unskilled immigrants will
create in the future. The NAS does this because costs or benefits years
from now are valued less in economics relative to more immediate costs.
But this means the actual net lifetime fiscal cost of illegal
border-crossers, given their education levels, is possibly $140,000 to
$150,000 each in their lifetimes if the NPV concept is not used.4
Methodology
The Importance of Educational Attainment. There is a good deal
of agreement among researchers that the education level of immigrants
is a key factor in determining their net fiscal impact. As a recent
study by the NAS states, the education level of arriving immigrants is
one of the "important determinants" of their fiscal impact.5 This finding is similar to a 1997 study by NAS that also examined the fiscal impact of immigrants.6
This conclusion also is mirrored by a 2013 study from the Heritage
Foundation. Referring to the education level of household heads,
Heritage concluded that "Well-educated households tend to be net tax
contributors." But at the same time, "Poorly educated households,
whether immigrant or U.S.-born, receive far more in government benefits
than they pay in taxes."7 My own research has come to the same conclusion.8
The reason for this is straightforward: Those with modest levels of
education tend to earn low wages in the modern American economy, and as a
result tend to make low tax payments and often qualify for means-tested
programs. The less educated are a net fiscal drain, on average,
regardless of legal status or if they were born in the United States or a
foreign country. Education Levels of Illegal Immigrants. In terms of the
educational attainment of illegal immigrants, there is a good deal of
evidence that they have modest levels of education, much lower than
native-born Americans or legal immigrants. The Heritage study discussed
above estimated that, on average, illegal immigrants have 10 years of
schooling. My own analysis for all illegal immigrants (visa overstayers
and illegal border-crossers together) is that 54 percent of adults have
not completed high school, 25 percent have only a high school degree,
and 21 percent have education beyond high school.9
The Pew Research Center has estimated that of all adult illegal
immigrants, 47 percent have not completed high school, 27 percent have
only a high school education, 10 percent have some college, and 15
percent have a bachelor's degree or more.10
These figures are for all illegal immigrants, including those who
overstayed a temporary visa, not just illegal border-crossers. Education Level of Border-Crossers. Since the border wall
would by definition only impact the flow of those who cross the border
illegally and not those who overstay a temporary visa or are smuggled
into the country, it is necessary to estimate the education level of
illegal border-crossers separately. Illegal crossers tend to be the
least educated component of illegal immigration because they are mostly
from Latin America and because more educated foreign nationals wishing
to come to the United States can often qualify for a temporary visa,
which they can then overstay.11
For example, a person with few years of schooling, a low paying job,
and no property in their home country is not likely to qualify for a
tourist visa or other temporary visitor visa. American consulates
overseas would typically deny such a person a tourist visa (B2) or
business traveler visa (B1) because the assumption is that such persons
may be coming to stay permanently. They are "intending immigrants" in
the terminology of the consular service. This is especially true for the
primary sending countries of illegal immigration, which are all
developing countries.12
A more educated person is much more likely to qualify for a tourist
visa, or for that matter a guestworker visa or a student visa, which
they can then overstay. Because illegal border-crossers are overwhelmingly from Mexico and
the rest of Latin America, we use the education level of illegal
immigrants from Latin America to estimate border-crossers' education
profile. My analysis of illegal immigrants from Latin America indicates
that they have the following education: 57 percent, less than high
school; 27 percent, high school only; 10 percent, some college or
associate's degree; 4 percent, bachelor's only; and 2 percent, more than
a bachelor's.13
These educational levels provide a baseline for estimating the fiscal
impact of illegal crossers. However, as we will see, even if we use
somewhat different estimates of education, the fiscal impact of illegal
border-crossers is still large and negative. Fiscal Impact by Education Level. The 2016 NAS study mentioned
above projected the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services
used) of immigrants by education. These estimates are expressed as a net
present value. This is a concept used in fiscal studies to express the
sum total of costs or benefits over long periods of time — in this case a
lifetime. NPV represents the fiscal balance (taxes paid minus costs) if
we had to spend the money today. Later in this report we discuss in
more detail the concept of net present value, both its usefulness and it
shortcomings. In addition to the original immigrant, the NAS study also has
separate estimates for the descendents of immigrants over 75 years.14
In this analysis we focus only on the fiscal impact of the original
immigrant. The tax payments and costs created by the descendants of
immigrants over 75 years are speculative, whereas the estimates for the
original immigrants are more grounded in current reality. The NAS study
does not report separate estimates for illegal and legal immigrants.
Rather, they simply estimate tax payments and expenditures on immigrants
as they appear in Census Bureau data, primarily the Current Population
Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. As result, the education
estimates from the NAS are for both legal and illegal immigrants. The NAS fiscal projections include eight different scenarios, each
with different assumptions about future spending, tax rates, and the
future flow of immigrants. It is not entirely clear what set of fiscal
assumptions are best, and the NAS study itself does not identify the one
best scenario. In Table 1 we simply take all eight scenarios and
average them together by education level.
It should be pointed out that in every scenario from the NAS, as
shown in Table 1, immigrants without a high school education are a
significant net fiscal drain during their lifetimes. That is, they pay
less in taxes than they use in services. Those with only a high school
education are a net fiscal drain in seven of the eight scenarios. In
contrast, the most educated immigrants, those with at least a bachelor's
degree, are a net fiscal benefit in all eight scenarios. Calculating the Fiscal Impact of Border-Crossers. The first
column of Table 2 reports the average fiscal effect of immigrants by
education level, taken directly from the bottom of Table 1. Column 2 in
Table 2 shows the education level of illegal border-crossers as
discussed above. Column 3 multiplies the average cost by the share of
border-crossers who fall into that educational category, and the bottom
of column 3 adds up the costs to give a weighted average. This means
that using the NAS average fiscal costs of immigrants by education and
assuming the educational distribution of illegal border-crossers shown
in the table means that the lifetime net fiscal drain per illegal
crosser is $97,759. However, for reasons discussed below we think this
figure somewhat overstates the fiscal costs.
As already mentioned, the NAS fiscal analysis includes all immigrants
— both legal and illegal. Although illegal immigrants do access some
welfare programs and create other significant costs, it is still the
case that less-educated illegal immigrants create smaller net fiscal costs than less-educated legal
immigrants. Unfortunately, the NAS study has very little discussion of
how legal and illegal immigrants differ in their fiscal impact. The
study does state: "Unauthorized immigrants as a group may have a more
positive fiscal impact than authorized immigrants."15
We agree with this conclusion and so we adjust the fiscal drain created
by less-educated illegal immigrants so it is less than that of
less-educated legal immigrants. To estimate the adjustment factor, we use the 2013 study by the
Heritage Foundation mentioned above. That study has estimates for
immigrants by education and legal status.16
While adjusting has the effect of reducing the fiscal costs for
less-educated illegal immigrants, it also reduces the fiscal benefits
for immigrants who are more educated. This reflects the fact that while
higher-skilled illegal immigrants are assumed to create a fiscal
surplus, they often are unable to find work commensurate with their
education level because of their legal status and so have to work at
lower paying jobs. As a result they do not have as large a positive
impact on public coffers as their legal counterparts. Since there are
relatively few illegal border crossers in the higher education
categories, adjusting for the most educated crossers makes only a modest
difference to the results. The right lower corner of Table 2 shows that the fiscal costs of
border-crossers, including the adjustment, is $74,722. Adjusting does
significantly reduce the fiscal costs — by 23.6 percent. However, it is
still the case that every 100,000 individuals who cross the border
illegally cost taxpayers nearly $7.5 billion. It must be remembered that
these are the present values of the lifetime net fiscal costs (taxes
paid minus services used) for illegal border-crossers only, with no
costs for their children or descendants. Do Net Present Values Make Sense? Net present values are
created by reducing or "discounting" costs or benefits in the future
based on how long in the future they take place. Page 325 of the NAS
study states that they used a 3 percent annual discount rate, which is
common in this kind of analysis. So, for example, the fiscal balance
(whether a net drain or benefit) an immigrant creates two years after
arrival is reduced by about 6 percent. After 10 years the amount is
reduced by about 26 percent, and at 20 years the discount is 45 percent.
This means events that occur further in the future have a smaller
impact on the total costs or benefits today. Comparing the net present
value fiscal costs of illegal border-crossers to the costs of a wall can
be seen as reasonable because the wall has to be paid for up front
while the fiscal drain accrues over time. Using an NPV makes the costs
of the wall and illegal border-crossers more comparable. The primary downside of using NPVs for fiscal estimates is that it
masks the size of future outlays created by less-educated illegal
border-crossers. For example, using a 3 percent annual discount rate, as
the NAS study does, means that if an illegal immigrant creates a net
fiscal burden of $10,000 in the 23rd year of the projection, it will be
reported and added to the total NPV as only $4,900 because of
discounting. Without discounting, the actual outlays associated with
illegal immigrants are much larger. This fact is worth keeping in mind
when looking at the NPVs. Making Different Assumptions. There are four key variables in
the above calculations. The first is whether to include the children of
illegal crossers. Many of the descendants of less-educated immigrants
struggle, earning low wages and using a good deal in public services. If
we use the NAS study's estimates that include the progeny of
immigrants, the fiscal drain increases to $94,391. But, as already
mentioned, the tax payments and costs created by the descendants of
immigrants in the NAS study go out 75 years and are speculative.
Therefore it makes more sense to focus on the original immigrants only. The second question is what fiscal scenario from the NAS study should
be used. (All the scenarios are shown in Table 1 of this report.)
Scenario 1 makes assumptions that are most favorable to the fiscal
impact of immigrants. If we use only this scenario, then the net fiscal
costs drop significantly, to $20,092 for each illegal crosser. While
significantly less than our estimates shown in Table 2, which reflect
all the NAS scenarios averaged together, the best possible fiscal
scenario for immigrants still shows a substantial net cost that would
equal $2 billion for every 100,000 illegal border-crossers. This
reflects the fact that even if one makes very favorable assumptions
about immigrants it is still the case that less-educated immigrants,
which account for most illegal crossers, are a large fiscal drain. By way of contrast, if we use Scenario 8 from the NAS study, which
makes the least favorable fiscal assumptions about immigrants, the net
fiscal impact of each border-crosser increases dramatically — to
$125,141, or $12.5 billion for every 100,000 illegal immigrants. This is
a good deal more than when all NAS scenarios are averaged together, as
reported in Table 2. But what is important to note is that no matter
what NAS scenario is used, there is a significant lifetime net fiscal
deficit for illegal border-crossers. The third key assumption in our estimates is the education level of
illegal border-crossers. As already discussed, there is widespread
agreement that illegal immigrants are a relatively unskilled population.
Further, illegal crossers are the least educated component of illegal
immigration because they are mostly from Latin America and because, as
already noted, more educated foreign nationals can often qualify for a
temporary visa, which they can then overstay. The poor and less educated
from Latin America typically have no other realistic option for getting
into the United States than surreptitiously crossing the southern
border. If we assume that border-crossers are as educated as Pew estimated
for all illegal immigrants, not just border-crossers, the average fiscal
cost would still be very large — $57,778.17
While somewhat less than our estimated cost of $74,722, it would still
mean that each group of 100,000 illegal border-crossers creates a net
fiscal cost of more than $5.8 billion during their lifetimes. Again,
Pew's figures show that about three-quarters of illegal immigrants have
less than a high school education or only a high school education, and
this makes them a large fiscal drain. Finally, there is the question of the difference between the net
fiscal impact of all immigrants (legal and illegal) by education level,
which is what the NAS estimated, and the fiscal impact of illegal
border-crossers. In Table 2 we adjust the fiscal impact of illegal
border-crossers significantly, reducing the costs of less-educated
illegal immigrants relative to immigrants of the same education by
almost 24 percent. If we more than doubled this reduction to 50 percent
for all educational categories, the net fiscal costs of border-crossers
would still be $48,879. Under a 50 percent reduction, each 100,000
illegal immigrants still create a cost of nearly $5 billion, a very
sizeable impact.18
Like the other assumptions, the adjustment factor matters, but the
education level of illegal crossers drives the results and the fiscal
balance is decidedly negative. Overall, different assumptions can affect the results. But because
the overwhelming share of illegal border-crossers have not completed
high school, or have only a high school education, it would require
highly implausible assumptions to avoid a substantial net fiscal drain
from those who cross the border illegally. In short, illegal
border-crossers are a large net fiscal drain because of their education
levels and this fact drives the results. Therefore, a border wall would
pay for itself even if it only stops a modest fraction of those expected
to successfully cross in the next decade.
End Notes
1 There is no one definitive
estimate of what a system of barriers, fencing, and walls will cost. The
cost depends heavily on what type of system is constructed and the
length of that system. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
has said Congress would appropriate $12 to $15 billion for the wall,
though he gave no time frame. As the senator is in a key position of
authority to determine appropriations, his estimate seems a useful
starting point for estimating what the federal government will spend on
the wall. See Kate Drew, "This is what Trump's border wall could cost", CNBC, January 26, 2017. 2 Please see the methodology
section of this report for an explanation of how we adjust downward the
NAS fiscal cost estimates, which are for both legal and illegal
immigrants, to reflect the cost for illegal border-crossers only. 3 John Whitley et. al., "Assessing Southern Border Security",
Institute for Defense Analysis, May 2016, p. iv, Summary Table. It
should be noted that some share of the 1.7 million border-crosers
expected in the next 10 years may be people who successfully cross the
border more than once. The border study does not have an estimate for
the number of individuals who might cross successfully more than one
time over a 10-year period. But if that number was perhaps a quarter of
the total, then the number of unique border-crossers over a 10-year
period would equal about 1.275 million. If this is correct, then a wall
would have to stop 13 to 16 percent of illegal crossers in the next 10
years. Alternatively, if 41 percent are the same person successfully
crossing more than one time in a 10-year period and the total number of
unique crossers was one million, then a border wall would need to stop
16 to 20 percent of crossers to pay for itself. 4 The NAS does not report the
fiscal impact of immigrants with and without the reduction in costs,
referred to as discounting by economists. However, if one assumes a 45-
or 50-year lifespan for illegal immigrants after they arrive and that
the fiscal drain is evenly spread throughout their time in the United
States, then the actual average fiscal costs are likely between $140,000
to $150,000 — perhaps twice what the costs are when the NPV is used. It
must be emphasized that our undiscounted cost estimate is only an
educated guess and the actual costs could be higher or lower. Later in
this report we discuss in more detail the advantages and disadvantages
of using NPV to think about fiscal issues. 5 Francine D. Blau and Christopher Mackie, eds., The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, September 22, 2016, p. 286. 6 James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1997. 7 Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, "The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer", Heritage Foundation, May 6, 2013, p. v. 8 Steven A. Camarota, "The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget", Center for Immigration Studies, August 2004. 9 Steven A. Camarota, "Immigrants in the United States, 2010: A Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population", Center for Immigration Studies, 2012, p. 69. 10 Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn, "A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States", Pew Hispanic Center, April 14, 2009, Figure 16, p. 11. 11 A study done for DHS by the
Institute for Defense Analysis found that the overwhelming majority of
successful border crossers are from Latin America. See John Whitley et.
al., "Assessing Southern Border Security", Institute for Defense Analysis, May 2016, p. 24. 12 Less-educated people from
developed countries can often enter the United States as tourists
without a visa under the Visa Waiver Program. Developing countries are
not typically part of the program. 13 This is based on analysis of
illegal immigrants identified in the public-use files of the 2011, 2012,
and 2013 Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic
Supplement by the Center for Immigration Studies. 14 Both the estimates for the
original immigrant and descendants are found on in Table 8-12 on p. 341
of the study. Francine D. Blau and Christopher Mackie, eds., The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, September 22, 2016, page 286. 15Ibid., p. 280, end note
number 2. See end note 16 in this report for a discussion of the fiscal
costs of illegal vs. all immigrants (legal and illegal). 16 The Heritage Foundation
reports the average fiscal impact for illegal immigrant and legal
immigrant households by education level. They also report the number of
households by education and legal status. With this information it is a
relatively straightforward matter to calculate the average fiscal impact
of all immigrant households (legal and illegal) by education. We then
divide this amount by the estimated costs for illegal households by
education to create an adjustment factor. So, for example, among illegal
high school dropout households the net fiscal impact is -$20,485 a
year, and for households headed by a legal immigrant who is a dropout
the drain is a good deal more: -$36,993. In Heritage's estimate, illegal
immigrants create a net fiscal cost that is about 55 percent that of
the burden created by households headed by high school dropout legal
immigrants. But this is not the proper comparison, as the NAS estimates
are for all immigrants, not just legal immigrants. Given the number of
households Heritage reports, the fiscal impact for all immigrant
households (legal and illegal) headed by a dropout must be -$30,294. As
this equals .676 of the estimated costs of illegal dropout households
reported in the Heritage study, this becomes the adjustment factor. We
do the same for the other educational categories. As the Heritage study
does not show separate estimates for those with only a bachelor's degree
and those with a graduate education, we use the same adjustment factor
for both. Taken together, this approach reduces the net fiscal drain of
illegal immigrants by almost 24 percent. It is possible that this adjustment factor may be too large and that
the costs of illegal immigration are actually greater. A study published
by the Center for Immigration Studies in 2016 showed that the average
illegal immigrant household creates 91 percent of the welfare costs of
the average immigrant household (both legal and illegal). See Jason
Richwine, "The Cost of Welfare Use By Immigrant and Native Households",
Center for Immigration Studies, May 2016. However, welfare is only one
cost and the Richwine study did not take into account tax payments. In a
2004 study of the federal budget, I found that the average household
headed by an illegal immigrant created a fiscal drain equal to 79
percent that of households headed by legal immigrants with the same
level of education. Relative to all immigrants (legal and illegal
immigrants together), illegal immigrants created a fiscal cost equal to
88 percent that of legal immigrants, again controlling for education.
However, the 2004 study was only for federal expenditures and tax
payments. That study did not include costs and tax payments at the state
and local level. See Steven A. Camarota, "The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget",
Center for Immigration Studies, August 2004. Later in this report we
discuss the effect of using a different adjustment factor. 17 As will be recalled from the
discussion above, Pew estimated that 47 percent of all illegal
immigrants, not just illegal border-crossers, have not completed high
school, 27 percent have only a high school education, 10 percent have
some college, and 15 percent have a bachelor's or more. To make the
estimates match the educational categories in the NAS study, which
reports graduate degrees separately, we assume that 10 percent have a
bachelor's degree and 5 percent have graduate degrees. 18 This would mean, for example,
that the fiscal cost of legal immigrants with the same education would
be substantially higher so that the average is what the NAS study
reports. In the Census data the NAS study used, immigrants can only be
legal or illegal, so the larger the reduction in costs for illegal
immigrants, relative to all immigrants, the higher costs legal
immigrants must create. Mathematically, the fiscal costs must average to
those reported in the NAS study for all immigrants by education level.
Steven A. Camarota is the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.
The estimates of the cost of carrying out President Trump’s plan to
build a wall on the nation’s southwest border vary, but the fiscal and
societal burdens heaped on U.S. citizens for governmental failure to
take decisive action on illegal immigration is significantly costlier,
border-control activists say.
One of the latest cost estimates of Trump’s U.S-Mexican
border-security plan – if Congress fails to approve supplemental
appropriations – is the equivalent of adding $95 to $120 per U.S.
household to the national debt, according to the nonpartisan nonprofit
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The organization calculated the per-household ratio based on the $12
billion to $15 billion estimated cost of a border wall that Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan jointly
offered last week. “This is about keeping Americans safe,” Ryan said. “We are committed
to working with the administration to stop the influx of illegal
immigration along the southern border, protect our homeland, and uphold
the rule of law. Based on Conservativet will cost the U.S. $27 billion to $40 billion to carry out the Trump endeavor.
The Federation for Immigration Reform, or FAIR – a nonprofit advocate
of limited immigration – says, however, that no matter who pays for the
wall, the project ultimately can be viewed as cost effective. Citing an estimated $100 billion recurring annual burden placed on
taxpayers due to the provision of services to illegal aliens and their
families, FAIR President Dan Stein said in a recent USA Today op-ed,
“Even at the high end of the one-time cost estimate for constructing a
wall, in the $15 billion and $25 billion range, the structures are cheap
at twice the price.” A widely cited FAIR report
published in 2013 claims illegal immigrants could cost taxpayers $113
billion annually, an amount adjusted to $99 billion after factoring
estimated taxes paid by illegals. President Trump during his election campaign cited the $113 billion
FAIR figure, leading to a PolitiFact analysis and several additional
analyses and estimates that were less than the FAIR total. Although PolitiFact acknowledged
it’s “difficult to determine exact costs of a population for which only
estimates are available” – without attempting to explicitly refute the
numbers – it judged Trump’s FAIR-based claim to be “largely false.” The primary fiscal burden of illegal aliens – $84 billion, in FAIR’s
estimate – falls on state and local governments, with the remaining $29
billion outlay coming from the federal government. The biggest state- and local-level taxpayer burden lies in the
provision of public schooling for the children of illegal aliens, since
the expense of public education traditionally has fallen on local
governments. With the majority of these students meeting the economic criteria of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, or Title I, program,
with those children constituting about 9.7 percent of K-12 enrollees
nationwide, “we estimate that about $1.33 billion of this funding is
spent on children of illegal aliens,” the report said. When additionally factoring in the Migrant Education Program ($237
million) and the Title III program ($538 million), the estimated annual
cost of education for these children is nearly $2.11 billion. Medical expenses for illegal aliens comprise about $5.95 billion,
factoring emergency medical care ($250 million), fraudulent use of
Medicaid ($1.24 billion), Medicaid cost of childbirth ($1.24 billion),
Medicaid for children ($1.6 billion) and other Medicaid outlays ($1.6
billion). Among other fiscal burdens cited in the report are $7.84 billion in
Administration of Justice Outlays, whose largest expenditures fall into
the categories of Residual Immigration & Customs Enforcement
Functions ($2.82 billion) and Detention and Removal ($2.55 billion).
“Criminal and deportable aliens in the hands of [Detention and
Removal Office] authorities are either transported to the border – if
Mexican – or flown to their homeland,” the report emphasized “Some Mexicans also are flown to the interior of their country rather
than being put across the border where many would be likely to attempt
to reenter the United States illegally.” According to FAIR, Public Assistance Benefits to illegal aliens at
the time of its analysis exceeded $4.71 billion when weighing the cost
of the Free and Reduced Meal Program ($2.27 billion), Temporary
Assistance of Needy Families ($1.03 billion), Child Care and Development
Fund ($633 million), and Housing Assistance Programs ($787 million). WND called the White House to obtain additional information on
President Trump’s border-security plan. A Press Office staffer said to
submit questions via e-mail. No response was given, however, prior to
publication deadline. The inquiry asked whether current White House cost estimates matched
or were comparable to the $12 billion-$15 billion figure offered by
House Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority Leader McConnell, who publicly
expressed support for the border-wall proposal. “Whatever the Trump administration estimates may be for the
border-wall endeavor, what is that cost-estimate based upon? In other
words, how exactly was it calculated? Does that calculation include
factors such as land-acquisition costs and labor? WND also asked for a revised estimate if indeed those factors were
not included in White House projections. An estimated date of release to
Congress of a detailed plan to build the wall was also requested. Drugs and crime The Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, views the burden of easy
access across burden in terms of murderous Mexican transnational
criminal organizations, or TCOs. The DEA reiterated in its most recent National Drug Threat Assessment,
or NDTA, that “Mexican TCOs remain the greatest criminal drug threat to
the United States; no other group is currently positioned to challenge
them.” These TCOs hold broad, territorial influence across large swaths of
Mexico to produce and then transport multi-ton quantities of illicit
drugs over the border. Mexican TCO members – many with family ties to “leading cartel
figures in Mexico” – enter the U.S. illegally as well as legally, often
concealing their operations within densely-populated Mexican-American
communities, according to the DEA. The Mexican TCOs’ control of “lucrative smuggling corridors across
the U.S. Southwest Border” enable them to deliver their “poly-drug
portfolio” of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana” and other
substances to U.S. consumer markets. The report points out that the violence that has plagued Mexico as a
result of the drug cartels has not, with some exceptions, extended
across the border into the U.S. “U.S.-based Mexican TCOs strive to maintain low visibility and
generally refrain from inter-cartel violence to avoid law enforcement
detection and scrutiny,” it said. “While there are isolated examples of TCO-connected murders in the
United States in past years, particularly along the SWB, they do not
represent a significant trend of concern.” Human carnage A recent Congressional Research Service, or CRS, report points to
slow but steady progress in joint U.S.-Mexican efforts to reform
Mexico’s criminal justice, known as the Mérida Initiative, while
combating transnational criminal organizations and cross-border drug and
human trafficking. Mexico, however, continues to be “the main foreign supplier to the
U.S. market of heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana,” CRS said in its
January 2017 report, “U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation: The Mérida
Initiative and Beyond.” “It remains a major transit country for cocaine sold in the United States.” Additionally, from 2010 to 2015, U.S. seizures of methamphetamine
increased 305 percent at the southwest border, while the amount of
heroin seized more than doubled, according to the report, which was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists. “Surging U.S. demand has fueled increasing opium cultivation and
heroin production in Mexico, as well as drug trafficking-related
violence in areas where groups are vying to control production,” the
report said. The George W. Bush Administration in 2007 launched the Mérida
Initiative, for which Congress then appropriated more than $2.6 billion
from FY2008 to FY2016. The FY2017 budget request under Barack Obama
included $129 million for the initiative, while a House measure – for
which the 114th Congress did not complete action – sought an additional
$20 million. Among the endeavor’s “Four Pillars” is “Creating a 21st Century
Border,” which extends some of the initiative’s focus from illegal
migration and cross-border crime to the potential risk that cross-border
commercial trade poses to the U.S. “Another issue policymakers may confront regarding the strengthening
of the Southwest border is how to prevent the corruption of U.S. and
Mexican border officials,” the report suggested. It noted that 144 employees of Customs & Border Protection, or
CBP, from FY2005 to FY2012, “were arrested or indicted for
corruption-related activities and 65 percent of them were stationed
along the Southwest border.” CRS acknowledged that the agency has stepped up efforts to increase
transparency on the matter, including a 2016 CBP Integrity Advisory
Council report that recommended the creation of Border Corruption Task
Forces. “To date, the 21st century border pillar has not directly addressed the issue of corruption,” CRS said in the report. “Congress may consider whether preventing, detecting, and prosecuting
the corruption of border enforcement personnel should be a component of
the border programs funded by the Mérida Initiative.”
Despite the efforts of U.S. and Mexican officials via the initiative –
and a decade after the Mexican government initiated a military-led
crackdown against drug traffickers and organized criminal organizations –
“violent crime continues to threaten citizen security and governance in
parts of Mexico, including in cities along the U.S. Southwest border.” The violence, according to the report, “may have claimed more than 100,000 lives since December 2006.” From the Mexican side of border, there have been threats against Trump’s plan. A former Mexican government official says that in response, his
nation might stop cooperating with the United States in the war against
the drug cartels, which would unleash what an analysis has described as
“chaos and violence.” The warning came from Jorge Castaneda Gutman, a former secretary of
foreign affairs for Mexico, whose leadership has been in an uproar over
Trump’s plan to stop illegal immigration. In a recent interview, Gutman claimed that the drugs and associated
violence are not Mexico’s problem, even though the drug cartels have
murdered tens of thousands of Mexicans, beheading many of their victims. He told CNN that Mexico “has a lot of negotiating chips in this matter … but it also has measures we could take in other areas.” Former
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo writes in his “In Mortal Danger” how those in
America illegally are demanding the rights granted to citizens. “For example, the drugs that come through Mexico from South America,
or the drugs that are produced here in Mexico all go to the United
States,” he said. “This is not our problem.” Gutman then boasted of his nation’s work with the U.S. but warned it might not last. “We have been cooperating with the United States for many years on
these issues because they’ve asked us to and because we have a friendly,
trustful relationship. If that relationship disappears, the reasons for
cooperation also disappear,” he said. At Intellihub,
an independent news outlet whose coverage of the secret 2012 Bilderberg
meetings became the source of a movie, writer Mac Slavo spelled out the
consequences of ending the cooperation. “[Gutman] suggested that Mexico’s previous cooperation with the U.S.
in curbing the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants could end,” he
wrote. “Instead, the cartels could be essentially unleashed upon the
U.S. – retribution for tough policies on Mexico and other
immigrant-producing countries in the Latin American world.” He said Gutman’s comments confirm the link between the cartels and the Mexican government. President Trump’s proposal to impose a 20 percent tariff on Mexican
goods to help pay for his border-wall plan appears to be entirely
lawful, according to the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., libertarian
think-tank. Dan Ikenson, director of Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade
Policy Studies, acknowledged last month in an analysis of Trump’s
proposal might comply with the letter of the law under several statutes. “The most probable statute is Section 232(b) of the Trade Expansion
Act of 1962, which permits the president to impose duties in the event
of a ‘national emergency,'” Ikenson said. He pointed out that President
Nixon once invoked this statute in 1971, subsequently imposing upon
Japanese imports a 10 percent surcharge in response to a “balance of
payments crisis” with Japan. “Trump might claim that the loss of manufacturing jobs or the influx
of illegal immigrants from Mexico is a national security crisis that
justifies his invocation of this law, and imposition of the tariff,”
according to Ikenson, who offered his analysis via the Cato at Liberty blog. Though Trump likely could implement such an action, it remains
unclear if the punitive tariff would remain in effect in the long term. “Whether the action would pass muster in a NAFTA panel or at the WTO
is another matter,” Ikenson said. “There has never been such a case –
duties imposed to redress a national security crisis – brought to
dispute settlement.” Ikenson, it should be noted, simply assessed the legalities of the
tariff in relation to the border-wall plan, and is not supportive of the
proposal. Indeed, he said it was unfortunate Trump had the power to
impose the discriminatory tariff – and equally unfortunate the president
has the will to carry out this border-security action. “The very idea of building the wall in the first place is a disgrace,
but demonizing our neighbors and hatching plans that could subvert the
Mexican economy and put another Venezuela on our southern border, is
belligerent and potentially disastrous,” he said. One analyst from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington,
D.C. think-tank, praised the border-wall plan and accompanying proposed
Trump measures to heighten border security as bold and effective.
“There is no question that all of these actions, taken together, will
be a major step in getting our illegal alien population under control,
securing our border, and deterring and reducing the huge influx of
illegal aliens into the U.S. that was spurred by the Obama
administration’s lax policies,” according to Hans von Spakovsky, senior
legal fellow in Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies.
