Why Immigration Reform Won’t Increase Government Spending

On Tuesday, just days after a bipartisan group of Senators released a set of principles to reform the immigration system with a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented residents, House Republicans convened a hearing to consider the benefits of immigration reform. The stacked witness list — of the eight witnesses testifying, four were opposed to comprehensive reform, and only two were clearly in favor — reflected the growing anxiety among conservative lawmakers about the cost of granting legal status to undocumented people, who, Republicans fear, would qualify for state or federal benefits and cost tax payers millions.

Research shows that legalizing immigrants boots their wages, which increases consumption, business revenue, and ultimately the entire economy. Immigration reform would add up to $5.4 billion in new tax revenue over the first three years, and a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy over a decade. Allowing these immigrants to naturalize would add even more economic activity, as naturalized immigrants earn 8 to 11 percent more in wages than permanent residents.

The Congressional Budget Office agrees with that assessment. The office’s score of the Senate’s 2006 comprehensive immigration reform plan calculated a net benefit of $12 billion over 10 years and an updated report placed the revenue gains even higher. An analysis of the 2007 immigration proposal found that legalization would increase revenue over costs by a factor of 2 to 1.

Significantly, the projected deficit of $18 billion from the CBO’s analysis (and the number Porter cites in his piece) is the result of additional border enforcement and other security measures ...

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/06/1549801/why-immigration-reform-wont-increase-government-spending/

Something tells me that facts and findings will not play a large role in the opposition by 'conservative lawmakers' to immigration reform.