As I tried to decipher this Herald-Sun story about a conference on illegal immigration, it became clear that an editor couldn’t possibly have seen this. Take, for example, this section of the story which purports to explain an Elon University professor’s view of economic impact. Does anyone have any idea what this means?
However, Hispanics have a positive economic impact on communities, said Brian Nienhaus, a business professor at Elon University. Nienhaus has calculated some startling numbers to illustrate the economic impact of Hispanics on a community.
Nienhaus admitted these are not hard numbers; he calculates the statistics as a hobby. However, he intends to purse this line of research further to create harder data.
So far, he’s figured that in a county with about 55,600 homeowners, 11,200 Hispanics would cost the taxpayers about $1.1 million per year in health care, schooling, law enforcement and other costs. But those 11,200 Hispanics would reduce the overall tax costs by $7.6 million, largely in labor costs.
People selling their homes in this county likely would take home about $22.8 million more than a county without the 11,200 Hispanics.
