In a new report, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—an anti-immigrant hate group headquartered in Washington, DC—claims that “Virginia’s illegal immigrant population costs the state’s taxpayers nearly $1.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration.” However, the statistical gymnastics in which FAIR engages to produce this number render it virtually meaningless. FAIR dramatically exaggerates the fiscal “costs” imposed by undocumented immigrants by including the schooling of their native-born, U.S.-citizen children in its estimate and completely discounts the economic role that undocumented workers play as consumers who help support Virginia businesses. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 16, 2009)
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