Home Of The Free: Immigrants Now Being Given An Economic Thumbs Up

There has recently been some significant “controversy” regarding Long Island’s immigrant population, primarily concerning those considered Latinos. But, now it seems that there’s some good news about this sector.

According to the numbers, Latino residents contribute almost $1 billion each year to the local Long Island economy, a number, note experts, much greater than the service they use and the costs they incur.

In fact, officials assert that the study reveals a precisely positive effect implicating that Latinos are hard-working individuals who are adding to our economic growth.

Still, the study was met with some “opposition”. In fact, critics suggest that the findings failed to differentiate between documented and undocumented immigrants leaving it still unclear as to exactly how much the undocumented individuals are costing us in taxes.

And, even some officials agree that lumping the two groups together is unfair.

With that said, the research revealed that in 2004 alone, Long Island Latinos contributed about $925 million in taxes and other government funds while costing local governments in Nassau and Suffolk only about $723 million for education, health care and correction. And, based on this researchers concluded that this segment of the population was responsible of just over $2-million in net profit or $614 per Latino resident.

According to officials the study calculated the final numbers by looking at what the Latino population, both documented and undocumented immigrants cost governments, schools, hospitals and jails in comparison to how much they put back into the economic system.

Furthermore, these calculations were based on an analytical model commonly used by economists in various states to determine the impact of immigrant communities, and also included interviews done with officials from local law enforcement, businesses, and politics.

However, researchers “did” admit that there is no scientific approach to isolating the impact of undocumented workers because the census information fails to differentiate between those who are here legally and those who are not.

And while immigrants are taking a “we told you so” attitude, some officials continue to push for stricter immigration limits and laws as they note that most national research suggests that Latino Immigrants are responsible for a net fiscal cost to local society.

They add that while the economy seems to grow because of contributions made by these immigrants, in reality, the money goes right back to the immigrants themselves because of the heavy drain they place on government services.

But, others continue to point out that at least on Long Island the statistics show that immigrants pay more (in taxes) than they are using (in services).