The immigration problem gets bigger

The Center for American Progress, headed by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta, has become the hottest Democratic think tank in a Democratic town. — Consider it an early warning signal of liberal assaults to come: While President Obama is directing the current battle, CAP is massing over the horizon for the next…

Immigration confers a very small net benefit on the U.S. economy overall—there’s not much dispute about that. That small net benefit is aggregated from a very large benefit to certain constituencies (primarily the immigrants themselves, but also upper-income earners and owners of capital assets) and a very large harm to other constituencies (primarily less-skilled, native-born workers).

At the same time, current policies impose very large burdens on taxpayers, especially state and local taxpayers. Immigrants, being mostly low-paid, pay relatively little in taxes. They are, however, heavy consumers of health services, education services, roads and prisons. It’s been authoritatively estimated that current immigration policies cost every California household about $1,200 per year in higher state spending.

Nor is there much disagreement that current policy allows longer-term problems to fester. The largest single group of immigrants to the U.S. comes from Mexico. While first-generation immigrants work very hard, second-generation immigrants manifest all kinds of ominous behaviors: very high out-of-wedlock birthrates, low high-school completion rates, and—increasingly—disturbing rates of crime. Even third- and fourth-generation Mexican immigrants attain surprisingly low educational levels

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