In a state such as Mississippi, where the illegal immigrant population is relatively tiny, to claim that illegal immigration is a major problem is a major exaggeration.
Still, that doesn’t stop some politicians in this state from trying to capitalize on the anti-immigrant fever that has become a trademark of the Republican Party nationally.
During the most recent legislative session, Mississippi lawmakers made illegal immigration a state crime, a totally unnecessary overlap of federal law. Police officers at the local and state level have a tough enough time keeping up with property crimes and violent crimes without asking them to worry about less than 1% of the state’s population whose only offense is not having permission to be in this country. Most likely, all this new law will do is further scare immigrants, including those who are in this state legally and doing the kinds of work — construction, landscaping, housekeeping, even farming — that native-born Americans aren’t lining up to do.
One justification for the new Mississippi law is the financial burden that illegal immigrants allegedly cost the state. A couple of years ago, State Auditor Shad White, who has been eyeing a run for governor, asked his agency to calculate that cost. It came up with a figure of $100 million a year — not an insignificant number if it is true, but is it?
Three-fourths of the $100 million estimate is attributed to the cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants. That number, though, is based heavily on one seemingly flawed assumption by the auditor that half of the illegal immigrant population goes at least once a year to the emergency room, where hospitals are required to provide treatment regardless of the person’s legal status or ability to pay.
We could not find any recent research on how often illegal immigrants seek emergency services at a hospital or other medical facility. In 2008, however, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the health policy organization now known as KFF, said only 13% of non-citizen adults reported an emergency room visit in the past year. It’s doubtful that percentage is higher now. If anything, it might be lower, given the federal crackdown on illegal immigrants during the two terms of President Donald Trump. Unless illegal immigrants are deathly ill, severely injured or in labor, they would be shy about coming to a hospital and risk being detained by authorities, since medical facilities are no longer off limits for immigration enforcement.
The only solid figure to substantiate the auditor’s estimate that illegal immigrants cost the state $77 million annually for health care is the $3.5 million a year that the Division of Medicaid recently reported spending on non-citizens, almost all of it for labor and delivery care of expectant mothers. The rest of the calculation is guesswork.
Interestingly, while the state auditor was not hesitant to estimate what illegal immigrants cost the state, he did not venture a guess at what they contribute in state and local taxes, which would offset a chunk of those costs.
Certainly, there are some states where large illegal immigrant numbers may be overtaxing the ability of their governments to manage, but those states are few in number. As of 2023, about half of all the undocumented persons in this country were living in just four states — California, Texas, Florida and New York. Mississippi, meanwhile, accounted for less than one-half of 1 percent of the total.
When the normal criteria are applied — such as cost, impact and public safety — to prioritizing issues for the government to address, illegal immigration should be low on Mississippi’s list. The reason it’s not is only because sounding tough on immigration plays well politically.
