The Morning News
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- Immigrants, both legal and illegal, cost the state about $170 million a year, according to statistics state agencies provided Monday to a joint meeting of legislative committees studying the impact of illegal immigration in Arkansas.
Public secondary education accounts for $154 million of the expense, although some of that cost is attributable to legal immigrants because student citizenship status is not tracked.
State courts and police departments spent $14.7 million on immigrants in 2004, while the state Department of Correction spent $1.8 million on illegal immigrants last year.
"We must close the barn door before everything's gone," said Sen. Ruth Whittaker, R-Cedarville. "This is going to have an enormous economic impact on our state far beyond what any of us imagined."
Posted by tyne at August 17, 2007