Trump Flunks Immigration

(2) "The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans."

The outcry is understandable; the facts prove Trump wrong. Study after study has debunked the notion that increased immigration, legal or illegal, produces a spike in crime. Indeed, the converse may be true.

"Over the past 20 years, during a time that immigration into this country has skyrocketed ... there has been no evidence that immigration is linked to positive increases in crime," said Northeastern University criminologist Jacob Stowell. "Often there is an inverse association: higher immigration means less crime."

A 2010 study by University of Colorado sociologist Tim Wadsworth found that "cities with the largest increases in immigration between 1990 and 2000 experienced the largest decreases in homicide and robbery during the same time."

(3) "The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in health care costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc."

Immigration does strain state and local budgets, particularly for education, in areas where immigrants cluster, although immigrants also pay state and local taxes. But for the federal budget, immigration represents a fiscal plus.

"The consensus of the economics literature is that the taxes paid by immigrants and their descendants exceed the benefits they receive -- that on balance they are a net positive for the federal budget," the Hamilton Project concluded.

Illegal immigrants aren't entitled to welfare, food stamps, Medicare or Social Security, or unemployment benefits. Indeed, they often pay federal taxes, and contribute more than $12 billion annually to Social Security alone without being able to collect.

Trump is off base -- not just in his extreme prescriptions, but in his underlying beliefs. And that is the most disturbing part of this debate, because those wrongheaded assumptions are shared by pretty much the entire GOP presidential field.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.