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  • Title: Illegal immigrants in Texas: impact on social services and related considerations.
    Author: Weintraub S.
    Journal: Int Migr Rev; 1984; 18(3):733-47. PubMed ID: 12339929.
    Abstract:
    A 1982-1983 survey of 868 undocumented aliens and a number of providers of public services showed that the state of Texas receives more from taxes paid by undocumented persons than it costs the state to provide them with public services, such as education, health care, corrections, and welfare. The same survey showed that 6 cities in the state (Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, McAllen, and San Antonio) together expended more to provide services to undocumented aliens than they received in taxes. The survey concentrated on undocumented persons not detained by the immigration authorities and found that this group constituted a distinct population from those in detention centers in that the former exhibited normal characteristics of settled families, while the latter were predominantly the familiar young, single, and peripatetic males. A related finding is that the households of the transient group consist predominantly of undocumented persons whereas the households of the settled group contain a greater mixture of legal residents and illegal aliens. Undocumented persons do indeed use public services, primarily education and health services. They are rarely recipients of welfare services or food stamps. Undocumented persons do indeed pay taxes and those taxes that go to or revert to the state of Texas clearly exceed the cost to the state to provide services to those people. On the other hand, local governmental units (below the state level) in Texas must expend more to provide public services to illegal aliens than those governmental levels receive from the taxes paid by these persons. This is an administrative issue relating to the recipients of tax dollars and the government level on which the burden falls to provide certain services, primarily health care and education. Finally, since only about half of the settled population is in the job market in Texas, a quick fix of deportation of these persons would not create an equivalent number of jobs.
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