The big beneficiaries of the Postville raid are the federal taxpayersand the taxpayers of whatever states from which the new legal Postvilleworkers come from.
Anti-enforcement entities are crowing about estimates that the raid on the Postville, Iowa meatpacking plant cost more than $6 millionthus far to deal with only 389 suspected illegal aliens. And that doessound like a lot. But my rough calculations suggest that if all 389 aredeported, taxpayers are likely to save nearly $8 million in the firstyear alone.
Iowa newspapers’ keen interest in the cost is an appropriateinquiry, although the tone of the coverage seems to suggest that $6million is an outrageously high price for such a small number ofillegal aliens out of the estimated 7 million who are working illegallyin the United States.
Of course, high-profile enforcement actions like this one are notdesigned primarily to reap direct financial benefits. Their mainpurpose is to frighten thousands of other employers from violatingimmigration laws.
And their second purpose is to make seeking illegal jobs less attractive for foreign nationals.
For laws to be massively obeyed, there has to be a reasonable chancethat people (or corporations) may pay dearly for breaking the law.Rarely does the prosecution of any kind of corporate wrong-doingproduce more direct society financial benefit than the cost of theprosecution. The point is to whip other corporations into lawfulactivity.
Nonetheless, when I put the pen to the paper, it looks like this expensive Postville raid will have directly paid for itself in less than a year.
Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has done the most exhaustive study ever of the total taxes paid by less-educated foreign workersand of the total amount of government services they consume. He foundthat the average household headed by the typical less-educated foreignworker costs taxpayers about $20,000 more in services than it pays intaxes each year.
So, $20,000 times 389 is $7.78 million net cost to fed, state andlocal governments for every year those workers remain in the UnitedStates.
Kosher slaughter (Postville)