Assemblyman Paul Kanitra’s new report puts a precise dollar figure on what illegal immigration costs New Jersey taxpayers. Independent tax researchers say the number only tells half the financial story.
A NJ Assemblyman Says Illegal Immigration Costs $8.2 Billion a Year. Economists Say That’s Not the Whole Ledger.
Assemblyman Paul Kanitra, a Republican representing parts of Ocean County, released a new report this week estimating that illegal immigration costs New Jersey taxpayers roughly 8.2 billion dollars annually, reigniting a fiscal and political debate that has run through the Legislature since his office first published a similar analysis in 2024. The 39 page report, built from federal and state data, records obtained through the Office of Legislative Services, and Open Public Records Act requests, has already drawn sharp pushback from economists and nonpartisan tax researchers who argue the headline figure presents only one side of a considerably more complicated financial picture.
Where the $8.2 Billion Figure Actually Comes From
Kanitra’s report estimates that approximately 737,000 undocumented immigrants currently live in New Jersey, translating to a fiscal burden of roughly 1,747 dollars per worker and 2,333 dollars per household statewide. By far the largest single component of that total is public education, accounting for an estimated 7.14 billion dollars, or about 87 percent of the report’s full calculation. That figure includes the cost of educating both undocumented minors and the U.S. born children of undocumented parents, alongside smaller categories covering emergency healthcare spending and state funded legal representation for individuals in deportation proceedings.
Kanitra has framed the report as a direct accounting exercise, arguing that New Jersey taxpayers deserve to know precisely what illegal immigration costs them each year, and has paired its release with a formal request for federal intervention from the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the House Judiciary Committee, tying the fiscal report to a separate, ongoing controversy over roughly 6,600 noncitizens found to have been registered to vote through the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission.
The Central Dispute: What Counts as a “Cost”
The core disagreement between Kanitra’s report and its critics comes down to a single methodological choice, whether to measure gross government spending alone or to weigh that spending against the tax revenue undocumented residents actually pay back into the same system. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that undocumented immigrants in New Jersey paid approximately 1.33 billion dollars in state and local taxes in 2022, spanning sales, property, and payroll taxes, New Jersey’s sixth highest total among all states according to the same analysis. Kanitra’s report does not subtract that figure from its 8.2 billion dollar total, and directly addresses that choice in its own text, acknowledging the ITEP estimate but arguing that even accepted at face value, it represents only about 16 percent of the report’s total identified costs, and disputing whether ITEP’s underlying methodology accurately reflects the actual undocumented population and its tax behavior.
| Source | What It Measures | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Kanitra Report (2026) | Gross state and local expenditures | $8.2 billion in costs |
| Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy | Direct state and local tax contributions | $1.33 billion paid |
A Debate With No Clean Resolution
Beyond the tax revenue question, immigration advocates and some economists argue the report’s framing leaves out the broader economic activity undocumented workers generate, particularly in New Jersey’s agricultural, hospitality, and construction sectors, where undocumented labor fills positions that have proven difficult to staff otherwise, generating consumer spending and business revenue that does not appear anywhere in a strict government expenditure ledger. Local outlets including the New Jersey Globe have also noted that Kanitra’s specific population estimates and cost per capita formulas have not been independently verified by nonpartisan state auditors or outside academic economists, meaning the underlying math itself remains effectively self reported by the report’s own author.
None of that means the underlying government expenditures Kanitra’s report documents are fabricated. New Jersey school districts, hospitals, and legal aid programs do incur real, measurable costs tied to serving undocumented residents and their families, costs state and local governments are generally required to cover regardless of immigration status under existing law. What remains genuinely contested is whether 8.2 billion dollars represents an accurate picture of the net fiscal impact on New Jersey taxpayers, or whether, as critics argue, it functions more as a one sided political accounting that counts every dollar spent while excluding the roughly 1.3 billion dollars flowing back into the same state and local coffers, along with harder to quantify economic contributions that do not show up in any government budget line at all.
