Conservative and Libertarian Groups Slam Heritage Immigration Study

Say it's flawed and focused on problems but ignored benefits

In what was almost certainly an unprecedented press call, top fiscal conservatives from Americans for Tax Reform, the Cato Institute, the Kemp Foundation and the American Action Network took what had once been the premier conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, to the woodshed for its immigration report that sees trillions in cost and no benefits from immigration reform.

With a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone, Josh Culling of ATR said that while Heritage was a "treasured ally," its work was a rehash of a flawed 2007 study that ignored all the benefits of immigration reform. Cato's Alex Nowrasteh was even more outspoken saying "how disappointed" he was that Heritage abandoned conservative dynamic scoring (i.e. the impact a piece of legislation's impact on the economy). He accused Heritage of not following years of their own work, which has striven to look at the impact on behavior of changes resulting from reforming the tax code and other innovations. "They ignored GDP, they ignored productivity," he said in reeling off the list of items in the Gang of 8 legislation left out of Heritage. Cato's study, which did use dynamic scoring, found that immigration reform would add $1.5 trillion in growth over ten years while forcing out 11 million immigrants (the Heritage solution) would lower GDP by $2.6 trillion over ten years.