The takeover of California

[KazDog]

"the start would be to enforce the laws already on the books"

What laws aren't being enforced now?

I agree that the border should be tightened up if not locked. And if you do that, then Mexico should in turn not let any American's into that country as well.

Go to Mexico and see for yourself. Wealthy American's are taking over there including many big business corporations. American owed Walmart type businesses are everywhere. Their resort properties along the oceans are being bought up by wealthy Americans at an alarming rate. And Mexico is allowing it. WHat's good for the goose is good for the gander....

KAZ

[gbell]

"the start would be to enforce the laws already on the books"

What laws aren't being enforced now?

I agree that the border should be tightened up if not locked. And if you do that, then Mexico should in turn not let any American's into that country as well.

Go to Mexico and see for yourself. Wealthy American's are taking over there including many big business corporations. American owed Walmart type businesses are everywhere. Their resort properties along the oceans are being bought up by wealthy Americans at an alarming rate. And Mexico is allowing it. WHat's good for the goose is good for the gander....

KAZ

Oh dear God, as if I could think any less of your arguments. How do you "lock" a border?
If I go to Mexico, as you suggest, can I bring a wave of my friends and family, demand equal rights as their own citizens like preferential pricing for schools, education, IN MY OWN LANGUAGE, for free, a drivers license, and access to benefits such as government handouts and medical care. Plus throw in the good chance of employment, regardless of the job. Where else in the world, let alone Mexico, can I do that?
Enforcing the laws on tthe books such as penalties for employers employing ILLEGAL aliens. Enforcing the laws on the books such as stiffer border enforcement. Deportation.
If a Mexican business owner wants to open up here, LEGALLY, I am all for it. As long as he follows the rules/laws. Do you think those resort owners are doing it illegally?

[KazDog]

Let me ask you something gbell....What are the illegals here for? Freedom? A better way of life? And it's probably costing tax payers less than 1/16th of their tax dollars in the benefits they receive as an illegal alien in this country.....

Yet, as I'm sure you are conservative, you are will to spend over 40% of your tax dollars fighting a war to free Iraqi's, thousands of miles away to give them Democracy.....That's called a waste of tax dollars. Quit worrying about miniscule amounts paid to welfare and even smaller amounts that illegals benefit from it and worry about the big picture.....

[10DimeBry]

Let me ask you something gbell....What are the illegals here for? Freedom? A better way of life? And it's probably costing tax payers less than 1/16th of their tax dollars in the benefits they receive as an illegal alien in this country.....

Yet, as I'm sure you are conservative, you are will to spend over 40% of your tax dollars fighting a war to free Iraqi's, thousands of miles away to give them Democracy.....That's called a waste of tax dollars. Quit worrying about miniscule amounts paid to welfare and even smaller amounts that illegals benefit from it and worry about the big picture.....

welfare, and health care costs are huge $$$$. all of our taxes we all pay out of our pockets go to people who shouldnt even be here. if you think otherwise you are sorely mistaken.

[KazDog]

welfare, and health care costs are huge $$$$. all of our taxes we all pay out of our pockets go to people who shouldnt even be here. if you think otherwise you are sorely mistaken.

Show me the statistics Bry....The majority of our tax dollars pay for the military. Welfare is a small amount of the overall tax money being spent. And the amount that illegals are entitled to, is way smaller than that.

[gbell]

Let me ask you something gbell....What are the illegals here for? Freedom? A better way of life? And it's probably costing tax payers less than 1/16th of their tax dollars in the benefits they receive as an illegal alien in this country.....

Yet, as I'm sure you are conservative, you are will to spend over 40% of your tax dollars fighting a war to free Iraqi's, thousands of miles away to give them Democracy.....That's called a waste of tax dollars. Quit worrying about miniscule amounts paid to welfare and even smaller amounts that illegals benefit from it and worry about the big picture.....

Why are the intentions of the ILLEGALS being used as a reason to break our laws and make us conform to what THEY want? I cannot do this in ANY other country on the earth; but it's allowed here.
Also, even if it's 1/16th (proof please), then it's 6% of monies that should be put to LEGAL places. Do you think 6% of tax revenues could solve some major issues in every state? How about that going to make college more affordable? How about using it to try and keep spiraling health care costs down? How about using it to upgrade schools, better transportation, ear mark it for alternative energy sources. This "miniscule" amount of money is far better served solving problems for people who are not BREAKING THE LAW.
Again, is it ok for me to beat the shit out of you and take your money as long as my intention to use the money was to feed my family?

[gbell]

Show me the statistics Bry....The majority of our tax dollars pay for the military. Welfare is a small amount of the overall tax money being spent. And the amount that illegals are entitled to, is way smaller than that.

Illegal aliens cost California billions


By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Illegal immigration costs the taxpayers of California — which has the highest number of illegal aliens nationwide — $10.5 billion a year for education, health care and incarceration, according to a study released yesterday.
A key finding of the report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said the state's already struggling kindergarten-through-12th-grade education system spends $7.7 billion a year on children of illegal aliens, who constitute 15 percent of the student body.







The report also said the incarceration of convicted illegal aliens in state prisons and jails and uncompensated medical outlays for health care provided to illegal aliens each amounted to about $1.4 billion annually. The incarceration costs did not include judicial expenditures or the monetary costs of the crimes committed by illegal aliens that led to their incarceration.
"California's addiction to 'cheap' illegal-alien labor is bankrupting the state and posing enormous burdens on the state's shrinking middle-class tax base," said FAIR President Dan Stein.
"Most Californians, who have seen their taxes increase while public services deteriorate, already know the impact that mass illegal immigration is having on their communities, but even they may be shocked when they learn just how much of a drain illegal immigration has become," he said.
California is estimated to be home to nearly 3 million illegal aliens.
Mr. Stein noted that state and local taxes paid by the unauthorized immigrant population go toward offsetting these costs, but do not match expenses. The total of such payments was estimated in the report to be about $1.6 billion per year.
He also said the total cost of illegal immigration to the state's taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas, such as special English instruction, school meal programs or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal-alien workers were added into the equation.
Gerardo Gonzalez, director of the National Latino Research Center at California State at San Marcos, which compiles data on Hispanics, was critical of FAIR's report yesterday. He said FAIR's estimates did not measure some of the contributions that illegal aliens make to the state's economy.
"Beyond taxes, these workers' production and spending contribute to California's economy, especially the agricultural sector," he said, adding that both legal and illegal aliens are the "backbone" of the state's $28 billion-a-year agricultural industry.
In August, a similar study by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said U.S. households headed by illegal aliens used $26.3 billion in government services during 2002, but paid $16 billion in taxes, an annual cost to taxpayers of $10 billion.
The FAIR report focused on three specific program areas because those were the costs examined by researchers from the Urban Institute in 1994, Mr. Stein said. Looking at the costs of education, health care and incarceration for illegal aliens in 1994, the Urban Institute estimated that California was subsidizing illegal immigrants at about $1.1 billion a year.
Mr. Stein said an enormous rise in the costs of illegal immigrants in 10 years is because of the rapid growth of the illegal population. He said it is reasonable to expect those costs to continue to soar if action is not taken to turn the tide.
"1994 was the same year that California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration," he said. "Since then, state and local governments have blatantly ignored the wishes of the voters and continued to shell out publicly financed benefits on illegal aliens.
"Predictably, the costs of illegal immigration have grown geometrically, while the state has spiraled into a fiscal crisis that has brought it near bankruptcy," he said.
Mr. Stein said that the state must adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal-alien use of taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed, and that policies need to be pursued to hold employers financially accountable.

[gbell]

Show me the statistics Bry....The majority of our tax dollars pay for the military. Welfare is a small amount of the overall tax money being spent. And the amount that illegals are entitled to, is way smaller than that.

VirginiaThe Problem of Illegal Immigration

- There are anywhere from over 2,700 to 8,000 illegal immigrants arriving in the U.S. every day. (Read more: Overview of Annual Immigration FAIR)

- Estimates of the net cost of immigration to taxpayers run from $30 billion to $50 billion a year. (Read more: Questions and Answers About Immigration FAIR)

- The United States admits more legal immigrants every year than all the rest of the nations of the world combined. (Read more: Statement of Jan Ting to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States, December 8, 2003 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States)

- More than 10 million undocumented aliens currently reside in the U.S., and that population is growing by 700,000 per year. (Read more: The Real Problem with Immigration…and the Real Solution Heritage Foundation)

- Three out of every 100 people in America are undocumented, creating a profound security problem. (Read more: The Real Problem with Immigration…and the Real Solution Heritage Foundation)



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Effects of Illegal Immigration

Health care:


- In some hospitals, as much as two-thirds of total operating costs are for uncompensated care for illegal aliens. (Read more: The Sinking Lifeboat: Uncontrolled Immigration and the U.S. Healthcare System - Executive Summary FAIR)

- The utilization rate of hospitals and clinics by illegal aliens (29 percent) is more than twice the rate of the overall U.S. population (11 percent). (Read more: Illegal Immigration and Public Health FAIR)

- Uninsured illegal aliens cost $2.2 billion annually to the health care system. (Read More: The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Center for Immigration Studies CIS)



Education:



- The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states nearly $12 billion annually, and when the children born here to illegal aliens are added, the costs more than double to $28.6 billion. (Read more: Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red FAIR)

- In Virginia, there was an estimated cost of $188.7 million spent on illegal alien children and $264.2 million spent on children born to illegal aliens. This brings the total cost to educate these children to $452.9 million. (Read more: Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red FAIR)

- California spends an estimated $2.2 billion annually — more than any other state — to educate illegal immigrant children. (Read more: Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red FAIR)



Economy:



- Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household. (Read more: The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Center for Immigration Studies CIS)

- The annual net cost of illegal immigrants to the American taxpayer is likely to be more than $45 billion today. (Read more: What's Wrong With Illegal Immigration? FAIR)

- A study in 1996 of the costs of illegal immigration by Rice University economist, Dr. Donald Huddle, found that illegal aliens were displacing roughly 730,000 American workers every year, at a cost of about $4.3 billion a year. (Read more: What's Wrong With Illegal Immigration? FAIR)

- For every 100 illegal aliens who find jobs in the U.S., 65 American workers are displaced. (Read more: What's Wrong With Illegal Immigration? FAIR)

- Illegal aliens have created an underground economy estimated to be about $970 billion, or nearly 9% of the real economy, and it is not being taxed. (Read more: The Underground Economy: Illegal Immigrants and Others Working Off the Books Cost the U.S. Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Unpaid Taxes Wall Street Journal)



Public Assistance:



- The cost of illegal aliens to Medicaid is said to be $2.5 billion annually. (Read more: The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Center for Immigration Studies CIS)

- Food assistance programs used by illegals such as food stamps, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, and free school lunches cost $1.9 billion annually. (Read more: The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Center for Immigration Studies CIS)



Crime:



- Approximately 27.5 percent of all federal prisoners are criminal aliens (illegal aliens and legal aliens who are convicted of committing a crime). (Read more: Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails GAO)



- Illegal aliens sentenced in federal courts were more likely than legal aliens or U.S. citizens to have at least one prior conviction resulting in a sentence of at least 60 days. (Read more: Illegal Aliens in Federal, State, and Local Criminal Justice Systems Urban Institute)

- In an April 2005 study, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the number of criminal aliens incarcerated in federal facilities increased from about 42,000 at the end of calendar year 2001 to about 49,000 at the end of calendar year 2004– a 15 percent increase. (Read more: Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails GAO)

- GAO estimated the federal cost of incarcerating criminal aliens totaled approximately $5.8 billion for calendar years 2001 through 2004. (Read more: Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails GAO)

- In a population sample study of 55,322 illegal aliens completed in May 2005, GAO found that the aliens studied had been arrested approximately 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien.

[gbell]

Show me the statistics Bry....The majority of our tax dollars pay for the military. Welfare is a small amount of the overall tax money being spent. And the amount that illegals are entitled to, is way smaller than that.

By draining public funds, creating unfair competition for jobs with America’s least prepared workers and thereby lowering wages and working conditions, and by imposing unwanted strains on services designed to provide assistance to Americans, illegal immigration causes harm to Americans and legal residents.

Illegal aliens' numbers are large and growing.
FAIR estimates there are between 10-12 million illegal aliens residing in the country in 2005. According to the Census Bureau, there were an estimated 8.7 million illegal aliens living in the United States in 2000. According to the Migration Policy Institute, roughly 500,000 illegal aliens are added to that population every year. The immigration authorities also estimate that there are over one million temporary illegal aliens, such as seasonal workers, here at any given time. The population of illegal aliens would be higher, but in 1986 our government gave amnesty to nearly three million illegal aliens, allowing them to become legal members of our society, and we have allowed additional millions to gain amnesty through other loopholes.

Illegal immigration undermines legal immigration.
There is a list of several million eligible people waiting to be legally admitted as immigrants to our country; some of them have been on that list for many years waiting for one of the numerically limited visas to become available. Illegal immigration makes a mockery of those people's adherence to the rules and of our country's sovereignty.

Illegal immigration harms the American workforce.
According to a study in 1996 of the costs of illegal immigration by Rice Univ. economist, Dr. Donald Huddle, illegal aliens were displacing roughly 730,000 American workers every year, at a cost of about $4.3 billion a year, and the supply of cheap labor depresses the wages and working conditions of the working poor. The approximate doubling of the illegal alien population since the time of that estimate means that the number of jobs lost to American workers and the costs of displacement would also likely have more than doubled.

Illegal immigration is a burden on the taxpayer.
The costs of illegal immigration to the taxpayer are numerous, but the largest costs are education of their children, emergency medical care and incarceration for those arrested for crimes. Despite being ineligible, some illegal aliens also get welfare the same way they get jobs: with identity documents falsely identifying them as U.S. citizens. In addition, if they have U.S.-born children, they may collect welfare assistance in the name of those children. The annual net cost of illegal immigrants (after subtracting their tax payments) to the American taxpayer is likely to be more than $45 billion. Our recent study of the net fiscal “Costs of illegal immigration to Californians” estimated the partial costs at $10.5 billion in that state alone.

The number of deportations is low.
Compared to the size of the illegal alien population, the number of annual deportations is shockingly small. In fiscal year 2003, only 186,151 aliens were formerly removed.1 Many of the deportees are caught by the police after they have committed a crime. In FY’03, 39,600 of the deported aliens fell in that category. The federal Bureau of Prisons estimates that nearly three-tenths of its prisoners are aliens.

Recent improvements have not solved the problem.
Although the number of deported illegal aliens is more than triple the average during the 1990s, we are only treading water in a rising tide. The Department of Homeland Security has no plan for identifying and removing the bulk of the illegal alien population, whose number continues to rise. Most illegal aliens remain safe from capture and deportation unless they are arrested for a crime.

Some aspects of INS enforcement are getting worse.
Stung by criticism from companies about worksite raids, often accompanied by criticism from elected representatives, the immigration authorities instituted in 1998 an innovation called "the Phoenix Plan." Instead of raiding a company, they informed it on the basis of a review of employment documents that they appeared to have hired illegal alien workers, giving the companies the opportunity to dismiss the workers. When this happened, the workers were free to simply walk away with their counterfeit identity documents to another employer. The interior immigration inspectors have only the resources to focus on a few large violators at a time, so most illegal alien workers — and the companies that employ them — get off scot-free.

Amnesty is not the answer.
As millions of illegal aliens are allowed to remain here year after year, pressure rises from immigrant advocates to grant them amnesty. But this is the equivalent of pardoning criminals en masse because it is easier than capturing them. It encourages further illegal immigration and, by creating new "legal" immigrants out of old illegal ones, adds dramatically to the backlog of relatives abroad who apply for legal admission. It also adds to the costs to the taxpayer, because when illegal aliens are given legal residence, they become eligible for additional tax-funded services. See separate Issue Brief: "Why Amnesty Isn’t the Solution”

The answer is to deter further illegal immigration and to tackle the removal of the current illegal alien population by:
improving the security of personal identification systems and require verification of legal work status. See “Employment Document Verification: Key to a Legal Workforce.”
linking government databases on births, deaths, and immigration status. See “FAIR's Comprehensive Document Security Proposal.”
tracking foreigners on temporary visas to assure they leave when required; See “Automated Entry-Exit System: Key to National Security.”
strengthening enforcement capabilities both on the border and in the interior of the country including the provision of more detention space for aliens pending deportation, and
developing additional cooperative federal-local immigration enforcement programs. See: “Immigration Law Enforcement by Local Agencies.”
Critical to the success of the deterrence of further illegal immigration and reducing the current illegal alien population is single-minded support by our elected leaders for our immigration authorities in their law enforcement efforts.



Sources: The Center for Immigration Studies, Don Huddle’s “The Net Costs of Immigration,” the INS Statistics Division.

1. 2003 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, September 2004, Department of Homeland Security. In addition, another 887,115 persons were offered and accepted voluntary departure in lieu of deportation.

[gbell]

Show me the statistics Bry....The majority of our tax dollars pay for the military. Welfare is a small amount of the overall tax money being spent. And the amount that illegals are entitled to, is way smaller than that.

Texas hospital
Second, this question of whether to provide free health care for all Mexican citizens is also critical because unlimited free American health care, which is far superior to the health services available in most parts of Mexico, surely encourages the ongoing flood of illegal immigration into Texas. Still worse, it provides an incentive for the frail and chronically ill to immigrate, whose burden on Texas' health care system will be especially great at the same time they do not provide any countervailing benefit to the state's economy by entering the workforce.

In short, Texas could become Mexico's nursing home.

Third, all of this comes at an enormous expense to Texas taxpayers. The Harris County Hospital District alone doled out $330 million in free medical care to illegal immigrants over the last three years. Even more ominously, the flood of illegal immigrants seeking free health care may crowd out U.S. citizens. Many public hospitals in Texas are already overburdened and some such as Brackenridge Hospital in Austin have begun turning patients away.

[gbell]

Show me the statistics Bry....The majority of our tax dollars pay for the military. Welfare is a small amount of the overall tax money being spent. And the amount that illegals are entitled to, is way smaller than that.

Analysis of the latest Census data indicates that California's illegal immigrant population is costing the state's taxpayers more than $10.5 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to nearly $9 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden from those three areas of state expenditures amounts to about $1,183 per household headed by a native-born resident.
The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state's taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, school feeding programs, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were added into the equation.

While the primary responsibility for combating illegal immigration rests with the federal government, there are many measures that state and local governments can take to combat the problem. Californians should not be expected to assume this already large and growing burden from illegal immigration simply because businesses or other special interests benefit from being able to employ lower cost workers. The state must adopt measures to systematically collect information on illegal alien use of taxpayer-funded services and on where they are employed. Policies could then be pursued to hold employers financially accountable.

[gbell]

Kaz, do you need more stats or will this do to show it's not as "miniscule" as you want to believe?

[KazDog]

They are also the cheapest work force in this country. They also spend money like any other citizen....They put billions back into the economy as well.....How much are the Iraqi's spending here compared to the TRILLIONS being spent to liberate them?

[tkim11]

Kaz, do you need more stats or will this do to show it's not as "miniscule" as you want to believe?

But stats can be measured and conjured a certain way to prove one side right and the other side wrong. Although, what u posted are a bit alarming

[kbsooner21]

They are also the cheapest work force in this country. They also spend money like any other citizen....They put billions back into the economy as well.....How much are the Iraqi's spending here compared to the TRILLIONS being spent to liberate them?

Flip flopping issues. John Kerry would be proud