Astonishingly, but not unsurprisingly, Western government institutions have not yet devised a unified strategy to address and quantify the substantial financial burden posed by mass immigration. Instead of engaging in a meaningful dialogue regarding these costs, governments and their statistical institutions often dismiss the issue with superficial statements, such as claiming that immigration enriches us or that diversity is our advantage. Alternatively, they may offer fragmented information, concentrating solely on specific expenses like cash payments for asylum seekers while disregarding the costs associated with housing, education, healthcare, and more.
As part of our commitment to Fair Immigration Protocols, we have developed a cost model that examines the impact of mass immigration and determines the necessary net contribution of each immigrant for their entry into the host society to be justified. To provide context, we will be using Ireland as a case study. It is important to note that we currently lack the necessary data and resources to conduct a comprehensive study or perform statistical analysis, so we must acknowledge this limitation. Nevertheless, our model is built on sound logic and will be refined and corrected as we receive updated information or actual inputs. Additionally, we are open to engaging in discussions with government statistical bodies to assist them in developing the actual model for their annual budget estimates.
The escalating expenses related to immigration are of such magnitude that, if accurately acknowledged, would act as a deterrent to mass immigration. When assessing the cost-to-benefit ratio, it becomes apparent that there exists no logical or economic rationale to support the notion of widespread immigration, neither for the receiving communities nor for the communities in a state of crisis.
The costs associated with immigration can be divided into three distinct categories.
- Firstly, there is the direct budget impact, which refers to the increase in budget and allocation that occurs as a result of immigration. In our Fair Immigration model, we will solely focus on this particular category from a cost estimation perspective.
- Secondly, there are opportunity costs to consider, such as the lost working hours due to the negative effects of traffic congestion, overcrowded schools and hospitals, closed beds in nursing homes, and extended waiting lists for medical appointments.
- Lastly, there is the society-shared cost, which encompasses the pressure placed on housing, leading to increased house prices and rent, as well as a higher cost of living for the host society. Additionally, mass immigration has implications for biodiversity and necessitates additional investments to achieve net zero targets.
- On the opposite end, mass immigration also contributes to the strain on low-paid jobs, resulting in a decrease in salaries.
Interestingly, in our case study on Ireland, the government does not provide a breakdown or analysis of the direct budget cost associated with supporting mass immigration. However, they do acknowledge that one of the main factors contributing to budget increases is "population growth," which in Ireland is solely driven by mass immigration.
The first logical assumption in the cost model of mass immigration is that every additional immigrant entering the host society necessitates investment in infrastructure, such as housing, healthcare, education, and transportation. This impact can be either direct or indirect. For instance, while individual immigrants may not require social housing, the overall strain on the housing market would lead more residents to seek social housing.
The second logical assumption of the mass immigration model is its dynamic nature. We estimate that as long as the foreign population in a country remains below 10%, the pressure on the budget is minimal. Within this 10% threshold, immigrants utilize the existing housing supply, have minimal impact on transportation, schools can easily accommodate a small number of new students, and the healthcare system can handle a few additional patients without issue.
As the threshold of 10% is reached, the expenses related to immigration and necessary investments start to rise dramatically. It is a reasonable deduction that for each additional immigrant, the host society's net contribution must also increase exponentially.
Our estimation suggests that when the foreign population in a country nears 30%, we reach a tipping point where the infrastructure demands such a substantial investment in a short timeframe that it becomes impossible to keep pace.
Let's delve into the Irish example. Once again, it is important to highlight and acknowledge the following: the cost model we are presenting is based on top-down assumptions. Although these assumptions are logical, we are open to engaging in discussions about what the accurate assumptions should be.
Between 2016 and 2024, Ireland has witnessed a significant influx of immigrants. The foreign population has surged from 15% to 23% of the total population. To put this into perspective, the number of foreign residents has risen from 714,000 to an estimated 1.2 million by 2024, excluding refugees. As a result, Ireland has transitioned from a manageable immigration situation to one with high impact and expenses.
In 2016, the Irish budget amounted to EUR 51.5 billion. For our model, we have excluded categories such as Agriculture, Defence, Finance, Foreign affairs, and the Taoiseach's office, as these are independent of immigration. This leaves us with a budget pool of EUR 46.7 billion, which must have been affected by the increase in immigration. By 2024, the total budget has surpassed EUR 90 billion. This means that categories impacted by immigration, such as housing and education, have experienced a budget increase of EUR 38 billion. Out of that increase, EUR 16 billion is assumed to be caused by mass immigration and in total EUR 22 billion is required on the annual level to finance mass immigration in the 2024 budget.
However, it is important to note that it would be unfair to attribute the entire budget increase solely to immigration.
A portion of the rise can be attributed to a general surge in expenditures, with only approximately 40% of the budget increase from 2016 to 2024 being attributed to mass immigration. To illustrate this, we have employed a model that assigns varying proportions of the increase to different budget categories. Housing sees the highest share, with 65% of the budget increase in the 2016-2024 period being linked to immigration, followed by health at 40% and education at 35%. It is worth noting that the government's budget for 2024 itself acknowledges population growth as a significant factor driving budget increases (see Reference 1).
The opposing viewpoint is often that the immigrant population is providing net benefits to the host society, immigrants are after all picking up low-paid jobs, that the local population does not want to perform, they work in shops, hospitals, the hospitality sector, etc. And that is exactly the point – low-paid jobs, even if paying taxes, do not return via net tax contribution back to the society enough to justify the immigration. Once you hit the share of the foreign population above 20% (as in the Irish case), each new immigrant should have a net contribution of at least EUR 30k, which means a job that has a gross salary of more than EUR 85k. While employers (shops, hotels, hospitality industry) or self-employed (taxi drivers, small shops) and immigrant families (with several dependents tapping into country educational, housing and health resources) are net beneficiaries of the mass immigration model, is the local population via “immigration tax” that is probably the biggest losers.
It is no wonder, that we lack not only any tangible data about the immigration cost, but there is not even an intelligent discussion around it. When it comes to mass immigration (including refugees), we hear only high-level qualitative directions, in terms of immigrants contributing immensely to society, we will be presented with one-off examples (entrepreneurs, sports stars, pop stars) and served with reasons such as “we have an ageing population and somebody will have to pay for our pensions”, or even more emotional blackmailing one (“have you no compassion” or “how can you put a cap on humanity”?).
And that is exactly the point and where Fair Immigration Protocols kick in:
- If your objective is to support (economically) the local host community, there needs to be a clear, tangible dynamic threshold for each new immigrant to come to Ireland. Where we stand now, that threshold is EUR 33k net tax contribution for each worker, family member, student… Yes, the university needs to pay for every international student that they bring in (and earn a lot of revenue) EUR 33k per year to the state.
- If your objective is to support refugees and immigrants, imagine how much more would have been done if EUR 4B had been invested in West Ukraine, East Poland or Africa. Just to put things into perspective: the total global UNCHR (UN Refugee Agency) is $10B (in 2022).
The conclusion: if we had a rational discussion and made our immigration policies and decisions based on the economic data, immigration would not have had to convert into an existential threat for Western countries. But as a starting point, let's recognize that mass immigration requires massive infrastructure investment and ongoing financing unless it is capped (at 10% of the local population) and each immigrant has to be a net contributor, while the bar keeps rising.
Tables and references:
Table 1: Break down of the Irish immigration cost model in the 2016 – 2024 period
| Immigration related | Not immigration related | Total |
2016 budget | €46.7B | €4.5B | €51.5B |
2016 – 2024 budget increase | €38.2B | €3.6B | €38.5B |
2024 budget (excluding Ukrainian allocation) | €82B | €8B | €90B |
Budget category & % of increase due to immigration | - Children, youth (30%) -> € 1.9B - Education (35%) -> € 2.1B - Enterprise, Employment (20%) -> € 0.15B - Environment (20%) -> € 0.2B - Health (40%) -> € 3.7B - Housing (65%) -> € 3.9B - Justice (30%) -> € 0.4B - Social protection (30%) -> € 1.7B - Transport (30%) -> € 0.8B | - Agriculture - Defence - Finance - Foreign affairs |
|
Budget increase due to migration | €16B (out of €38.2B budget increase) | - | €16B |
2016 – 2024 immigration (excluding refugees) | 420.000 | - | 420.000 |
Required net contribution per each incremental immigrant | €33,000
| - | €33,000
|
Reference 1 (extract from Irish 2024 budget presentation):
Reference 2: Source of tax receipts
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