Illinois Immigration

< Back to Illinois Immigration Resources

Illegal Residents

432,000 illegal aliens resided in Illinois as of 2000, according to INS figures. This is 49 percent higher than the previous INS estimate in 1996 and 123 percent higher than the estimate for 1990.25

In 1994 (the latest year for which figures are available), the Urban Institute estimated that public services for illegal immigrants cost Illinois $136 million: $112 million for public education, $6.2 million for incarceration, and $17.4 million for Medicaid. During the same year, illegal immigrants in Illinois paid only two-thirds that amount in federal, state, and local taxes, the study found.26

The large population of illegal aliens is straining the state’s health care systems. Many illegal aliens lack health insurance and rely on the local emergency rooms and public health clinics for routine care.27

The Chicago police and public service authorities operate under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” order with regard to illegal aliens, adopted in 1989.28 Other areas, however, have been frustrated by their inability to work with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS angered Greenfield Mayor Don Chapman in 2002, when it declined to take custody of two illegal aliens pulled over in a traffic stop. An INS spokesperson said that the agency had to be focused on other priorities. Two years earlier, INS agents told the Carrollton Police Chief Mike Kiger to release illegal aliens arrested by his department, saying they didn’t have the manpower to send an agent to take the aliens into custody. Kiger said he was so upset that he even offered to transport the illegal aliens to an INS detention center but was told to simply let them go.29

Illinois authorities requested compensation of $36.4 million from the federal government for the incarceration of illegal aliens in state and local jails and prisons in FY’99 (under the federal State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP), but it received only $14 million in compensation, leaving $22.4 million in uncompensated costs to be borne by Illinois taxpayers.

Contact Illinois Immigration Attorneys

Top of Page