I never mentioned the term alien. That's in your own head, kiddo.
You're slow. "Illegals" is a term used by knuckledraggers (aka, erm, you) to apply to people who border across illegally...except the reality is that about half the 11M "illegals" in the country currently came to the country
legally with a work visa that eventually expired. Part of my point rests with this reality; that illegal border-crossers can't be lumped in with immigrants who let their work visas expires. It paints with too broad a brush and puts your xenophobic "Illegals!" terminology (that the RNC itself said made them look
xenophobic) in the proper context. That context being what everybody who meets you in person thinks of you when they hear you spew "Illegals!" rhetoric; oh, it's crazy uncle Leo.
If we leave out the billions in sales taxes they pay, the billions in GDP and thousands of jobs they produce with their small businesses via legal work visas (which comprise half of now undocumented workers) and the voluntary federal taxes some of them pay then sure, they cost more than they contribute...except they don't. Notice how Heritage came out with a figure of $6T for how much "Illegals!" would cost over the next 10 years and how no one took that shit seriously, Republicans included. Meanwhile, the CBO
did a study on the
Senate immigration bill and found the country experienced a net positive benefit to the deficit of $135B over 10 years.