Under a fair system of taxation that distributed the full cost of government over all working citizens, and a well functioning court system that efficiently enforced rule of law, immigration would be an overwhelming positive — we would want as many people as possible to share the cost of government, and to contribute to economic growth, and so we would want to encourage immigration.
But we do not have anything even remotely approaching the first two conditions. The United States has an advanced court system that functions quite well in comparison to most of the world, but it still has a glaring amount of corruption. And considering government funding and taxation, the United States, like many other countries, has an ever increasing debt load that it has no chance of paying off.
https://www.cato.org/events/qualified-immunity-supreme-courts-unlawful-assault-civil-rights-police-accountability
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-corrupt-judges-of-ninth-circuit.html
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/government-spending-tragedy-of-commons.html
There are studies that attempt to show that immigration has a significant negative cost —
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/record-135-billion-a-year-for-illegal-immigration-average-...
https://fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers
This should not surprise anyone who is even remotely familiar with the transfer payments that make up the bulk of the government budget, and the debt load that is being pushed on to future generations.
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-trust-fund-tolls-for-thee.html
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2014/12/rare-honesty-on-social-security.html
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2014/08/george-wills-cognitive-dissonance.html
Nothing the United States government does is fully funded without adding debt, so it is clear that only those who make the largest tax payments are paying anything approaching their fair share (if not more) of the cost of government (despite all the disingenuous talk to the contrary), since the government does not tax nearly enough to cover its budget, since that would be wildly unpopular.
So you do not have to do a study to understand that United States residents at the lowest income levels (immigrant or not), pay almost none of the costs of government — you just have to understand that the United States tax system is heavily progressive, and so no one at the lower income levels pays their share of the costs of government (never mind those at the lowest levels).
All United States taxes are based on percentages (sales, property, income), to take the most from those who make and spend the most, and income taxes are paid almost exclusively by upper income earners.
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/paul-krugman-defining-pandering.html
Low income earners will pay property taxes indirectly (via rental payments), but a low income earner will be forced to economize (living in the cheapest areas, with the least expensive properties), and so their indirect tax payments will be minimized as well.
Payroll taxes like OASDI (Social Security) are distributed to beneficiaries (i.e. they are one of many transfer payments made by government), and so they do not cover the cost of government — they are merely taken from one person to be given to another.
So over time, given the current tax system in the United States, a large number of immigrants at the lowest income levels must add to the tax burden of Americans at the upper income levels, or the government's debt level (or both).
The current system of taxation and benefit payments in the United States is not sustainable, so even if immigration could be magically halted completely, it would not make the present condition sound — and adding more uneducated low income earners certainly does not help that condition.
Immigration is not an unqualified economic positive — there are many factors at play, and many people discussing this as an economic positive under current conditions, are assuming preconditions that are obviously false. Unless perhaps the United States government could steal the OASDI payments that were made using fraudulent Social Security numbers (sarcasm) —
http://reason.com/reasontv/2018/02/14/best-arguments-against-immigration
https://web.archive.org/web/20180315110030/http://reason.com/reasontv/2018/02/14/best-arguments-against-immigration
And of course, it is no surprise that politicians pander by supporting supposed 'immigration reform', because in this way they can attempt to conceal their vote buying as a supposed defense of human rights, while they ignore the rights of taxpayers.
The article from 'reason.com' quoted in part above is especially ironic in this regard, since the articles published there tend to be very critical of government irresponsibility, and the government's unwillingness to address the entitlement crisis —
http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/08/uncle-sam-continues-to-stick-his-head-in
http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/08/ivanka-and-conservatives-want-to-raid-so
https://web.archive.org/web/http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/08/uncle-sam-continues-to-stick-his-head-in
https://web.archive.org/web/http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/08/ivanka-and-conservatives-want-to-raid-so
So why do so many politicians want more open borders, and does anyone think that will encourage such politicians to become more responsible? That is, politicians gain and keep office by promising credulous voters things that they cannot have, and such politicians do not support open immigration because of its supposed economic benefits.
https://www.minds.com/media/816517462740099072
Here is an excerpt from the article 'Immigration Lies and Hypocrisy' by the economist Walter Williams —
http://walterewilliams.com/immigration-lies-and-hypocrisy/
https://twitter.com/WE_Williams/status/958342920767262721
http://archive.is/Nccde
And then there is the process of societal breakdown that can occur as a result of a large number of immigrants from more primitive cultures, and especially from those that follow strict religious doctrines like Islam, which urge followers to kill apostates (see the UK, France, Germany, Sweden).
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-likely-murder-of-asia-bibi.html
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2015/01/ayaan-hirsi-ali-and-islamic-hate-speech.html
https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
https://www.nytimes.com/...-attacks-on-women-in-cologne-were-unprecedented-germany-says.html
http://archive.is/RV5EK
https://www.nytimes.com/.../swedish-police-investigate-over-40-reports-of-rape-and-groping-at-2-music-festivals.html
http://archive.is/gpckR
https://twitter.com/ralnick/status/974764533695750145
