Immigration Reform Bill Could Cut Almost $1 Trillion From Deficit And Add 10 Million Legal Residents Over The Next 20 Years: CBO

An analysis from the Congressional Budget Office says proposed immigration law changes could cut $1 trillion from the federal budget deficit and create 10 million new legal residents over the next 20 years.

Initial estimates taken from the report suggest that the creation of millions of new taxpayers each year would outweigh the increased costs to bring the bill forward. The budget analysis predicts that $197 billion would be wiped from the federal budget in the first decade with a further $700 billion from 2024 to 2033.

The report was hailed by the bill’s co-author, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. But Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., was quick to charge that the report had concealed the true costs involve because it didn’t consider the biggest long-term costs to taxpayers, such as Medicaid, food stamps and cash welfare.

Hours before the report was released, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he would bring the bill forward only if a majority of Republicans and Democrats supported it.

“I also suggested to our members today that any immigration reform bill that is going to go into law ought to have a majority of both parties’ support if we’re really serious about making that happen, and so I don’t see any way of bringing an immigration bill to the floor that doesn’t have a majority support of Republicans,” said the speaker after a meeting of House Republicans, according to a report in the New York Times.