Trump's illegal immigration figures do not go before the experts

President Donald Trump has gone home empty handed for the moment, after the federal government's longest closure in the history of the United States, which has failed to lobby Congress for it. He has been funding the long promised border wall, supposedly to stop the flow of drugs and crime from Mexico.

But he has not finished pleading his case with regard to immigration.

On Sunday, he announced several figures on Twitter regarding the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States, their financial cost to the country and the number of those who voted illegally in Texas.

Trump's badertion already posed many problems, namely that unauthorized immigrants disproportionately brought in more drugs and crime. And several experts said they were concerned about the figures he had released Sunday.

The White House has not responded to a request for comment.

Non-citizens expressing votes in Texas

In a tweet on Sunday, Trump said that "58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas and 95,000 non-citizens were registered to vote." He quoted an investigation that Texas officials had published a few days ago but that state democrats immediately questioned.

The investigation, led by the Texas Secretary of State, revealed that 95,000 people eligible to vote in the state had at one point told a law enforcement agency that they were not eligible to vote. not citizens. Of this number, 58,000 have voted at some point since 1996.

Politicians and voters ask officials to investigate both personalities.

"Because we have regularly seen Texas politicians talk about the specter of electoral fraud as a pretext for suppressing legitimate votes, we are naturally skeptical," said state representative Rafael Anchia, Democrat at Home. d & # 39; State, The New York Times.

Even if the numbers are considered accurate, these 58,000 voters could have become citizens before voting. More than 50,000 people were naturalized in Texas in 2017, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

"We have a reason to be wary of these numbers," said Andre Segura, legal director of the Texas ACLU. "These numbers have been inaccurate for a long time. Electoral fraud is extremely rare. "

In Florida, the administration of former governor Rick Scott tried to purge non-citizens 'voters' lists in 2012. It all started with a list of 180,000 electors based on driver's license data, according to the newspaper. The Tampa Bay Times. In the end, 85 people were removed from the lists, according to the newspaper.

The cost of illegal immigration

In another tweet, Mr Trump said that "the cost of illegal immigration so far this year is $ 18,959,495,168. The cost Friday was $ 603,331,392. "

It is unclear where Mr. Trump arrived at these numbers. They follow with a tweet last month in which he said the country was losing "$ 250 billion a year in illegal immigration."

But several experts said that these figures were far too high.

There is little research on the cost of immigrating unauthorized immigrants to the United States. The highest costs would typically be related to education and health care, but many unauthorized immigrants pay taxes and are generally precluded from receiving many of the more expensive benefits, such as Medicaid.

No study seems to comprehensively address a net cost, but rather the costs or benefits.

"Unfortunately, they tend to talk to each other," said Randy Capps, director of research for US programs at the Migration Policy Institute.

The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2016 that immigration, both legal and illegal, was beneficial to the economy. He said immigrants cost an average of US $ 1,600 a year to state and local governments between 2011 and 2013, but that their children and grandchildren paid much more for tax than they did. Used it in public services.

Alex Nowrasteh, senior immigration policy badyst at the Cato Institute, said the highest figure he had seen came from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates limiting immigration. He said unauthorized immigrants cost the country at least $ 116 billion a year.

The Cato Institute challenges this figure, which, according to Nowrasteh, has not taken into account the economic benefits of unauthorized immigrants. He and others questioned the group's methodology.

"None of these figures are based on the fiscal cost," he said. "The president's figures are even twice as bad."

Number of undocumented immigrants in the country

Mr Trump also claimed that in the United States there are “at least 25,772,342 illegal aliens, not the 11,000,000 that have been reported for years.”

Again, several experts said Mr Trump’s numbers were too high.

It appears that Mr Trump is making his claim based on a study conducted by researchers affiliated with Yale University and the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology, which estimated the number at 22 million.

Starting from a 1990 estimate, researchers modeled the population's evolution in the coming years, based in particular on immigration rates, demographic trends and demographic trends. deportations, to reach the estimate of 22 million.

The findings of this study, published in the journal PLOS One in September, were disputed, with some wondering if they underestimated the number of immigrants who left the country.

The researchers also acknowledged that their results were skewed away from existing estimates. Most other studies indicate a figure of about 11 or 12 million. The Pew Research Center estimated this number at about 10.7 million in 2016. In 2015, the Department of Homeland Security estimated this number at 12 million.

“There’s been no evidence of a new, rapid increase of the population,” Mr Capps said.

William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said the methodology used by Pew has been verified over the decades.

“They have a general sense that what they are doing is reasonably OK,” he said of the Pew researchers. "I trust them. They have been doing it for a long time.

The New York Times