Illegal Immigration in the South

The State of Mississippi just released a report about the economic impact of illegal immigrants. Such reports are proliferating—last month the Kenan-Flagler Business School issued one on North Carolina. The problem with these studies, however, is that they are based almost entirely on guesswork, then claim to pinpoint the economic impact exactly.

The Mississippi report is so bad it’s embarrassing. These are the words of the State Auditor on the cover letter:

“The most significant finding of this report is Mississippi’s inability to accurately quantify the costs of illegal immigrants because most state agencies, schools and other government entities do not currently document the actual number of illegal immigrants or their use of services.

The report does fairly estimate the net financial impact of illegal immigrants in Mississippi to be more than $25 million a year.”

Huh? There is no way to quantify the impact, so we’re going to pull a number out of a hat and pretend it means something. I guarantee that the students in my senior seminar will all turn in a paper of higher quality than this.