Related Publications: Backgrounder
Panelists Lindsay Lowell, Policy Studies Director for Georgetown University and Robert Rector, Domestic Policy Studies Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation discussed the issue of immigration and its costs and benefits for the federal government. Executive Director for the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, spoke about the need to study the cost of any potential amnesty for illegal immigrants. He also analyzed the stance of both Pres. Bush and Sen. Kerry on immigration and amnesty. CIS Research Director Steven Camarota spoke about the fiscal costs of illegal immigration and the need for "policy makers to take into account the costs of illegal immigration." He discussed a recent report that he authored titled "The High Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget," that attempted to discover the relation between the costs and revenues caused by illegal immigration and the changes that might be caused by an amnesty.