Thread: Loose border saps county coffers

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Medical facilities in border counties have to deal with some of the
nation’s highest rates of uninsured patients.

Loose border saps county coffers
By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY
The United States' inability to slow illegal immigration from Mexico is fueling a financial crisis in the 24 counties along the 1,951-mile Southwest border, according to a new study. It says the counties are struggling to fund law enforcement, health programs and other necessities because they are spending millions of dollars a year to care for illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants continue to flow across the border even as increased security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — there now are about 10,000 federal agents there, up from 7,000 — has boosted arrests dramatically. In 2004, there were 1.14 million arrests along the border that stretches from California to Texas, the Department of Homeland Security says. That was up 26% from the year before.

The jump in arrests has come to symbolize how localities have been left with much of the bill for border security, according to a study by the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) to be released today by the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition. A funding increase by Congress last year will boost the number of federal detention cells from 18,000 to 20,000. However, that's not nearly enough to handle the waves of immigrants who are being arrested, so such people often end up in local jails.

Reimbursements fall short

The federal government reimburses localities and states for services they provide to illegal immigrants, but the payments don't come close to matching the localities' costs, the report says. For example, Department of Justice records show Arizona's four border counties asked the federal government for $23.2 million last year to cover the cost of jailing thousands of illegal immigrants. The counties were reimbursed $731,000.

In California, San Diego County spends $50 million a year to arrest, jail, prosecute and defend illegal immigrants, and is reimbursed about $2 million, says county Supervisor Greg Cox, president of the border counties coalition. The $48 million shortfall cuts into the $600 million a year the county has for discretionary spending, he says. "That's money that would support libraries, parks and public safety."

Dennis Soden, executive director of the Institute for Policy and Economic Development at UTEP, says the border situation "creates a burden on the court system, the jail system and the prison system.

"The fact that the border can't be controlled creates a law enforcement problem that falls on the local jurisdictions," he says. "There's no other place in the country in this situation."

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke says that besides increasing security, the federal government is launching a strategy to reduce the burden on state and local governments by returning illegal immigrants to their native countries more quickly.

Knocke says the department hopes to continue increasing the number of federal detention cells in border states. He says Homeland Security also is counting on Congress to create a guest-worker program that would allow the estimated 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants in the USA to stay here for a limited time — likely six years. "It's no longer a situation where border security means just Border Patrol agents," he says.

This week, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is considering immigration proposals that include registering, fingerprinting and issuing guest-worker permits to illegal immigrants in this country. The full Senate is likely to debate the issue March 27. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has endorsed building a controversial double fence between the USA and Mexico, and tougher penalties for immigration violations.

Further effects

The impact of illegal immigrants on border counties reaches well beyond law enforcement, Soden says:

•U.S. law requires hospitals to treat anyone who needs emergency care, regardless of their ability to pay or immigration status. The UTEP study found that border counties have some of the nation's highest rates for uninsured patients, and that treating illegal immigrants accounts for nearly one-quarter of the uncompensated costs at the counties' hospitals. In Pima County, Ariz., hospitals reported having to absorb $76 million in treatment costs in 2000, about one-third of it from treating illegal immigrants.

•Cochise County, Ariz., reported spending tens of thousands of dollars each year to collect trash left at remote campsites by illegal immigrants. County Board of Supervisors Chairman Pat Call estimates that 13% of the solid waste generated in Cochise comes from such sites.

"The garbage issue is huge. Diapers, toilet paper, plastic jugs, backpacks," says Call, whose sparsely populated county in southeastern Arizona has become a favorite pathway into the USA for drug smugglers, human traffickers and Mexicans seeking work. "You name it, we've got to pay the bill for cleaning it up."

Like Cox and other officials in border jurisdictions, Call says the increasing cost of illegal immigration on local law enforcement is rippling through his county's budget.

Prosecuting and jailing illegal immigrants who commit crimes costs Cochise County about $5 million of its $49 million annual budget, Call says. In 2005, the county asked the federal government for $2.5 million to help offset the costs and received $73,000, Call says.

About 25% of Cochise's budget paid for health care to uninsured people — most of them illegal immigrants — who went to the county hospital's emergency room, he says.

"The border region has some unique hardships," Call says, citing the UTEP report's analysis of the border counties' relatively high rates of uninsured residents and shortages of doctors and nurses. "The immigration issue, because the feds have not moved fast enough or thoroughly enough to deal with it, just exacerbates the panoply of issues we have here."

In California, San Diego County spends $50 million a year to arrest, jail, prosecute and defend illegal immigrants, and is reimbursed about $2 million, says county Supervisor Greg Cox, president of the border counties coalition.

Maybe if our elected morons here in San Diego didn't have a treasonous SANCTUARY POLICY we wouldn't be known as MEXICO'S FINEST CITY, and one of the top destinations for drug cartels, car thiefs, petty criminals and welfare cheats in the nation. But noooooooooo, we have a corrupt, Hispandering City Council, and County Board of Supervisors that do everything within their power to make these masses of illegals feel right at home. Everything from MEXICAN NATIONALS who cross the border daily to go to San Diego public schools at taxpayer expense to every pre-natal clinic offering free services to any illegal who walks in the door 8 1/2 months pregnant. Not to mention how the San Diego Police Dept. has an absolutely absurd hands off illegals policing policy that allows car thiefs, drug cartel members and other criminals free reign to rob, steal, maim and kill with impunity, free to jump back across the border to total freedom from justice without so much as a peep by local police.

In fact, it is widely known that they WILL NOT even file reports on crimes commited by known illegals, so they can say their crime figures are going down, even though San Diego has become a total nightmare to live in. San Diego has become the personal ATM of every criminal within car, bus or trolley distance from Tijuana, they just come across illegally or otherwise, commit theier mayhem and pop back down to TJ, free to repeat the cycle over and over again, all the while the police chief pats himself on the back for how the crime statistics in San Diego have decreased since he has been in office. What a crock, but then again, that's why they call it MEXICO'S FINEST CITY.