Two conservative groups released a study on Thursday examining the economic cost to Massachusetts taxpayers due to high levels of immigration to the state over the past few years.
The groups want Massachusetts lawmakers to limit the state’s emergency shelter system to U.S. citizens, repeal the law that allows undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, and take other actions to pare back services available to migrants.
Immigration advocates, meanwhile, are decrying the groups’ analysis as flawed.
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and the Center for Immigration Studies said that the “number of illegal and inadmissible migrants living in Massachusetts is about 355,000,” with 50,000 new arrivals since 2021. Their claim is that the Biden administration’s admission of migrants fleeing humanitarian crises in Haiti, Ukraine and other countries under a parole program is not in fact a legal method of immigration, and the basis of the study relies heavily upon this claim.
The Center for Immigration Studies has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an “anti-immigrant hate group” since 2016 due to its rhetoric and associations with white nationalists.
While the groups reiterated that the cost of emergency shelter housing is now over $1 billion, they pointed to additional costs like health care and schooling for thousands of children.
“While they signal with their lack of policy reforms that the state can afford to cover the financial costs for the world’s migrants, the Center’s study shines a light on what their lack of action is costing the taxpayers,” concluded Paul Diego Craney, a spokesperson for the group.
The groups claim that migrants are eligible for certain “welfare” or social service programs in Massachusetts under state law, despite federal laws barring that access. They said they particularly want to raise the alarm over more people becoming eligible for programs five years after entering the United States, saying that many immigrants came to Massachusetts in 2021, so they will be eligible in 2026, calling it a “potential fiscal time bomb.”
“Their eligibility for the welfare programs is due to their low incomes,” said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, “and that is not offset by much of a tax contribution that they are required to make.”
Immigration advocates like Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, disagree with that assertion. She cited a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis that states new arrivals contribute greatly to the federal economy.
“Despite the misguided anti-immigrant rhetoric studies like this promote, the reality is that immigrants without status will actually fuel so much economic activity while paying taxes that they are projected to help lower our nation’s deficit by almost a trillion dollars over the next 10 years,” she said.
That CBO analysis did not analyze the effects of the immigration surge at the state or local levels, but said past research has shown new arrivals typically generate more costs than revenue at those levels.
Sweet said that instead of “driving immigrants out,” elected officials need to focus on clearing pathways to status and streamlining the work authorization process.
Several elected leaders joined the virtual press conference on Thursday, including Republican Rep. Marcus Vaughn, who represents Norfolk, where the Healey administration recently converted a former state prison into a temporary overflow shelter for migrants.
“Small bedroom communities like mine are being required to shoulder the very high economic cost for the state’s broken policies,” said Vaughn via statement. “A small town like Norfolk, which has about 11,000 residents, has suddenly seen hundreds of migrants enter the community, and is being required to provide the social services, schools, and other accommodations necessary.”
Norfolk residents were split over plans for the shelter, leading to angry exchanges at town meetings. The state addressed some of the town’s concerns prior to opening the shelter, and residents recently told GBH News that
tensions have since eased.
