However, the opposite will hold true in the long run. In particular, the cost of retirement benefits for amnesty recipients is likely to be overwhelming. For federal programs that already face precarious financial futures, such as Social Security and Medicare, this additional obligation could hasten their collapse.

In light of this fact, we must take the long view to know what we are really buying. When we do, it becomes clear we cannot afford amnesty.

PHILIPPE LEGRAIN
Journalism fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them.

Critics of regularizing the status of 12 million hardworking immigrants claim that the richest nation on earth cannot afford it.

They calculate that amnesty would eventually cost the United States $2.6 trillion. They reason that if 10 million adult illegals are regularized, some 8.5 million will live to retire at age 67 and, thereafter, cost taxpayers $17,000 per year each for the next 18 years. Because the typical illegal immigrant is now in his early 30s, he will not retire for another 35 years or so. In effect, these critics claim that taxpayers cannot afford an extra $144.5 billion a year between 2042 and 2060. Given all the productivity-enhancing improvements in technology likely to occur by then (not to mention plausible changes in public policy), such hypothetical future costs are rounding errors. With even a fractional uptick in economic growth—hardly an unreasonable hypothesis, not least because legalized immigrants would be able to borrow to start their own businesses—they vanish into thin air.

The benefits of regularization, though, are immediate and large. Even critics admit that it would swell federal coffers now, because immigrants would pay income and payroll taxes, but remain ineligible for most benefits until five years after obtaining a green card—perhaps as long as 13 years in total. And, by definition, they will be net contributors to Social Security until they retire.

Critics argue that low-skilled immigration is harmful because the newcomers are poorer and less educated than Americans. But that is precisely why they are willing to perform low-paid, low-skill jobs that Americans shun. In 1960, more than half of American workers over the age of 25 were high school dropouts; now, only one in 10 are. Understandably, high school graduates aspire to better things, while even those with no qualifications do not want to do certain dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs.

Without low-skill immigrants, America would grind to a halt. Who would do construction work, clean dishes, hospitals and hotel rooms and look after Americans’ children and elderly parents? Such jobs cannot readily be mechanized or imported; the elderly cannot be cared for by a robot or from abroad. And, as people grow more affluent, they increasingly pay others to do arduous tasks, such as home improvements, that they once did themselves, which frees up time for more productive work or more enjoyable leisure.