Life without illegal immigrants - effects on economy - Editorial

Illegal immigrants get a lot of the blame for America's problems, but they don't deserve it. The government's bill for feeding, healing, and clothing them is balanced by the taxes they pay and the money they spend.
While they are heavily concentrated in a few places, they have only a minor effect on national population growth. Politicians who favor extreme measures to get rid of them aren't helping anyone - they are only scaring people in a cynical attempt to get votes.
Between 225,000 and 300,000 illegal aliens are added to the U.S. population of 264 million every year, according to estimates by the Census Bureau and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) respectively. They account for 9 to 12 percent of population growth. But 40 percent of illegals live in California, 15 percent in New York, 11 percent in Florida, and 10 percent in Texas, according to the Urban Institute. Another 10 percent live in Illinois, New Jersey, and Arizona. In these key states and some big cities, the foreign-born are part of a demographic and economic transformation that frightens native-born Americans. Elsewhere, they are insignificant.