TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Florida hasd the highest increase in illegal immigration of any state from 2009 to 2012, according to the Pew Research Center.
By nature of avoiding detection, exact figures are hard to come by. But using community survey data, Pew’s Hispanic Trends Project estimates about 925,000 unauthorized immigrants now live in the Sunshine State, or roughly 1/11th of the nation’s 11.2 million illegal immigrant population.
President Obama’s executive order on Nov. 20, in which he bypassed Congress and suspended deportations of up to 5 million undocumented aliens, undoubtedly will have a significant impact on the state, both politically and economically.
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Given the importance of Florida as the nation’s largest swing state in presidential elections and the propensity of Hispanics and Latinos to vote mostly Democratic, the president’s unilateral action is widely viewed as a bold effort to court current and future voters.
Just two weeks removed from a Republican midterm election “shellacking,” Obama had said previously such an executive order was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the move was immediately hailed as a political win among the president’s most ardent immigration supporters.
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Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, called it “a victory” for the president, and touted economic benefits that will soon follow.
“It will bolster our economy so those who are working will do so legally in a way that increases tax contributions for the nation and prevents bad employers from pitting them against U.S.-citizen workers,’ Murguia said.
But the net economic benefits of the immigration order, a core policy argument, are a matter of sincere dispute.
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Tax revenues from an influx of millions of newly lawful residents—still not U.S. citizens—will indeed increase government revenues. Whether the total tax contributions will outweigh the costs of generous public benefits they may receive is unclear, experts say.
Bob Dane, communications director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants will compound existing fiscal problems.
“Adding millions of poor immigrants who are mostly government dependent into a welfare system that is already at the breaking point is hardly a serious definition of stimulating the economy,” Dane said.
