Thread: Border Security Debate Revived In CA

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SACRAMENTO
Border security debate revived
Governor's praise of Minutemen leads to talk of costs, benefits

Greg Lucas, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, May 16, 2005

Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent praise of the armed citizen Minuteman Project and comments about border security have revived a long-running debate over whether the costs of illegal immigration to California outweigh the benefits.

The last time a California governor focused so much attention on illegal immigration was 11 years ago when the state was hemorrhaging jobs and the politically divisive Proposition 187 sought to save money by denying government services to illegal immigrants.

As was the case back in 1994, assessing precisely how much the state spends on services for illegal immigrants is difficult.

California provides health care and schooling to more than 2.5 million illegal immigrants, but the state has not estimated education spending on illegal immigrants in "recent memory," a state department of finance spokesman said. Then-Gov. Pete Wilson said it cost $1.7 billion to educate nearly 400,000 children of illegal immigrants in California public schools in 1994.

Two U.S. General Accounting Office reports from last year, however, say there isn't enough information or a sound methodology to determine how much states spend educating illegal immigrants.

The state tracks about $1.1 billion in costs associated with incarceration of illegal immigrants and some health care programs. California hospitals estimate they spend about $500 million each year on emergency room care for illegal immigrants, but this year will get $71 million under new Medicare reimbursements rules issued by the Bush administration.

Immigration advocates say that while many of California's 8 million foreign-born residents, one-fourth of whom are undocumented, use government services, they also pay income and sales taxes as well as millions in Social Security and Medicare taxes.

"There are social expenses -- education, the streets we drive on, health, but at the same time the immigrant worker is contributing the taxes used to support those social expenses," said Ramon Cardona, 50, who works with Richmond-based Centro Latino Cuzcatlan, which helps immigrants assimilate.

Cardona, who immigrated to California 35 years ago from El Salvador, also says immigrants enrich the state's diversity and help spur the economy.

"A great many immigrants come to this country to succeed," said Cardona, whose father worked 14 years to raise the money to bring the rest of his family north. "They have work discipline and commit to doing a good job regardless of bad working conditions or low salaries."

But there is debate over whether inexpensive labor provided by illegal immigrants helps or hurt the state's economy.

Some economists say the cheap labor force reduces wages for low-skilled workers, both native and immigrant, but cuts the bottom line for several key industries including agriculture, construction and hospitality.

"Employers gain more than the workers lose," said George Borjas, professor of economics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "It's the same argument as free trade. Free trade negatively affects the autoworker, but you and I as consumers gain a lot."

A recent Pew Hispanic Center report echoes Borjas' point about immigration pushing down wages. Nationally in 2004, Latino employment increased by 1 million workers, but weekly earnings declined by more than 2 percent for the second year in a row.

The fall in wages was greatest among immigrants arriving in the United States within the past five years.

Phil Martin, an agricultural economics professor at UC Davis, noted that the only time farm wages rose faster than nonfarm wages in the state was roughly between 1965 and 1975 -- after the end of the state's braceros program and before immigration began to increase sharply.

The competition brought by cheap immigrant laborers can also reduce pay for all low-wage workers.

Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that wants to curtail immigration, refers to it as "occupation collapse."

Beck cites the meatpacking industry and downtown Los Angeles janitorial services as two vocations whose wages plummeted with the influx of cheaper immigrant workers.

But Isabel Alegria, a spokeswoman for the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative in Sacramento, said wage loss is not something that can be attributed to the immigrant.

"It's an economic factor," she said. "Yes, you have an immigrant willing to work for less, but if that drives down wages, the blame isn't on the immigrant."

Borjas and others say any benefit that illegal immigrants bring to the economy cannot overlook the costs of providing them with government services. "You have the welfare state on top of everything, which pushes whatever gain you have into a loss, especially in a state like California, which is so generous," he said.

Groups advocating restrictions on immigration set the cost of providing those government services at varying levels.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to tighten the borders, pegs the cost of educating, incarcerating and providing health care for California's illegal immigrants and their children at $10.5 billion, less $1.5 billion in taxes paid.

State Sen. Ray Haynes, R-Riverside, uses the federation's figures to buttress his proposed ballot initiative to create "California Border Police," to assist in patrolling the state's boundary with Mexico. Haynes says the cost of maintaining the separate police force would be recouped by reductions in state spending on services for illegal immigrants.

Schwarzenegger said Thursday that he has not taken a position on Haynes' proposal. But he has spoken up in support of the Minuteman Project, a group of armed volunteers who have patrolled the Arizona-Mexico border. The governor also told newspaper publishers last month that the border with Mexico should be closed, but he quickly retracted the statement and said that he had meant to say the border should be secured.

In addition to the economic questions that illegal immigration pose, there are quality-of-life considerations that are hard to quantify. Immigration influences numerous issues such as congestion, sprawl and school class size, but placing a price tag on illegal immigration's impact is elusive.

Despite the renewed interest the governor has brought to the issue of immigration, most Californians don't care as passionately about immigration, illegal or legal, as they did 11 years ago when Wilson sued the federal government seeking reimbursement for more than $2.5 billion in state costs he attributed to porous borders.

"Back in the 1994 election, it was right up there with the economy and crime in the top three," said Mark Baldassare, chief pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. "Our polling now shows only about 5 percent rank it as a top concern."

Immigration costs California doesn't track total spending on government services for immigrants, legal or illegal. But it does maintain figures on some health care and incarceration costs.

In 2002, births and prenatal care of illegal immigrants' children cost $328 million.

In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, a legal immigrant aid program, Food Assistance, is projected to cost $25 million.

In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, the costs of imprisoning 18,000 illegal immigrants will be $734 million, up from $711 million in this fiscal year. (A federal program reimburses the state for 11 cents of each dollar it spends. Last week, Schwarzenegger and 13 other governors asked Congress for an increase in the reimbursement.)

Source: California Department
of Finance

E-mail Greg Lucas at glucas@sfchronicle.com.

They failed to factor in that they are lawbreakers and that we flat don't want them here.

Witness the attacks July 4, 2000...and the 'rally' for the monument this last weekend.

Sheesh...round 'em up..head 'em OUT.

And KEEP 'EM OUT...

RR