Someone Break the News to Marco Rubio: Amnesty Costs 70 Times More Than Enforcement

I respect Marco Rubio. I supported him in his Senate run. Most importantly, I believe he means well.

But the allure of power has proven too strong for him. Ensconced in the Beltway Bubble, Rubio's fallen for what I call "the legislation delusion". Roughly translated, it is the belief that complex, multi-faceted legislation can solve humanity's problems.

Obamacare is the quintessential example of law run amok: it represents tens of thousands of pages of regulations, arbitrary thresholds, segmentation of families into static classes, and other symptoms of a master planner's delusions.

What the Statist terms "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is similarly -- and fatally -- flawed. It represents dizzyingly complex regulations, dependent upon arbitrary conditions, restrictions, and dictates all requiring millions of pages of flowcharts. It is the product of the proverbial "Mastermind": one who believes he or she can better orchestrate mankind than the entirety of the civil society.

And, as history has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, Masterminds must always turn a blind eye to the financial ramifications of their plans. One need only review the cost of Amnesty.

The cost of amnesty: $999 billion. The cost of attrition by enforcement: as little as $14 billion. Amnesty would cost up to 70 times as much as enforcing existing law.

$999 billion cost of Amnesty (Mass Legalization)

Source: The Heritage Foundation
Summary: The Heritage Foundation issued two studies in 2007 pointing out that the big problem with mass legalization is that (a) most illegal aliens are low-skilled and therefore do not earn enough money to pay enough taxes to cover the government benefits they receive; and (b), amnesty would eventually make them eligible for the full array of welfare and medical benefits offered by local, state and federal governments. They found the cost of allowing illegal aliens to remain in the United States, and eventually to become citizens, would be $3.7 trillion through the year 2056. That works out to a present cost of $1 trillion, at a 5 percent discount rate. In other words, immediately upon passage of an amnesty bill, the United States government would need to put $1 trillion into an investment earning 5 percent per year if it were honest about paying for the costs of amnesty.

$14 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #1.

Source: Congressional Budget office Estimate for H.R. 4437.
Summary: This option is the bill H.R. 4437 sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that passed the House of Representatives in 2005. This bill would have been so effective in combating illegal immigration that some 1 million illegal aliens marched in cities around the United States on May 1, 2006 to protest it. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $1.9 billion over the 5 years 2006-2010, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure. The resulting cost was actually $13.5 billion, which we round up to $14 billion to facilitate comparison to the other cost figures.

$177 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #2.

Source: Congressional Budget Office Estimate for H.R. 4088.
Summary: This option is the SAVE Act (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act) that was introduced in the House of Representatives in 2007. This is a strong attrition through enforcement bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $40.7 billion over the 10 years 2009-2018, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure.

We conservatives are immigrants. We are first-generation immigrants or the descendants thereof. But we, as opposed to those whom the "Gang of Eight" would legalize, have followed a lawful process. We and our forebears have come to America's shores through Ellis Island and other ports of entry, applied for citizenship, and have become the law-abiding citizens that have shaped the country.

That is not what "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" represents: it instead grants legal status to those who have broken the law, stolen their way into the country without background checks, without any vetting of their connection to drug cartels or terrorism, and without even a modicum of examination.

There is only one acceptable response to the Gang of Eight's master plans. Seal the border, prove it is sealed over a substantial period of time, and then -- and only then -- will the American people countenance "amnesty" or whatever term the Statist uses to describe legalized lawbreaking.