Christian Science Monitor -- March 18The hidden cost of illegal workers Low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more in services than they pay in taxes. ....Rector worries about the costs of opening the country to a new flood of immigrants. A proposed Senate measure. "would be financially ruinous for the United States," he charges. Rector calculated that a bill passed by the Senate last year would have increased the number of immigrants gaining legal status over the next 20 years by 55 million to 60 million. Most of those immigrants probably would have less than a high school education. And since low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more than they pay in taxes, Uncle Sam would be out- of- pocket $70 billion a year.