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In 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly passed an “immigration enforcement” bill that actually weakened immigration enforcement. This bill, HB786, was essentially a special interest bill for agriculture, restaurants, hotels, and construction associations. Both the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and the North Carolina Farm Bureau lobbied heavily for its passage. It was vetoed by Governor McCrory, but his veto was overridden by the General Assembly. The principal fault of the bill was that it widened the gap of non-enforcement of the State's E-Verify law, which requires employers to check the immigration status of job applicants.

The bill's principal sponsors in the NC House, who I am sad to say are Republicans, actually proposed that illegal immigrants be issued NC driving permits to help them get to and from jobs. This outrageous provision was fortunately defeated.

Most of the $2.0 billion annual cost of illegal immigration in NC actually impacts at the county level. It disproportionately impacts counties with high numbers of agricultural workers.

The $2.0 estimate includes $1.3 billion for education of the children of illegal immigrants, including the cost of dual-language instruction for some. Healthcare for illegals costs $232 million per year, public assistance $79 million, and law enforcement and justice $216 million per year. Illegals only pay $228 million in taxes per year, most of which are sales taxes. They pay less than $14 million per year in income taxes. They are cheap labor for employers, but a sizable fiscal burden on taxpayers

Their fiscal costs are by no means the only costs. The economic cost to North Carolina workers are considerable. The cheap labor of illegal and imported workers displaces and drives down the wages of North Carolina workers. Judging from national figures compiled by Harvard economist George Borjas, the economic costs of illegal immigration to American workers exceeds the fiscal costs.

Unfortunately, most North Carolina voters have not noticed that they are paying a huge burden in taxes, unemployment, and lower wages for the benefit of special interests.

In addition to the dollar measurement of illegal immigration costs, there are some costs that are extremely different to measure, but are nonetheless very important.

North Carolina is spending $216 Million per year on justice and law enforcement to maintain 410,000 illegal immigrants, but that does not measure the cost of crime to its victims. An independent organization called NCFire.com at least tries to track the more serious crimes.

Mike Scruggs