Thread: Illegal Immigration Costs California $10.5 Billion Annually

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articl ... cleID=4927

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Illegal Immigration Costs California $10.5 Billion Annually

By Joseph Anthony Dolz
January 18, 2006

Immigration and its consequences has become a serious concern for liberals, conservatives, environmentalists, the elderly who are dependent on affordable healthcare and families with school children. The “Mervin Field Poll� taken in September of 2005 indicates that 81% of Californians are concerned about the impact of illegal aliens on the State and that 49% are alarmed.

The overwhelming majority of Californians are now aware that the State's "cheap labor" costs the average household $1,183 a year. It is harder to put a cost on the “dumbing-down� of our schools to accommodate a massive number of non-English speakers, the closing of 60 Los Angeles County emergency rooms due to uninsured illegal aliens as reported by Dr. Madeleine Melner Cosman) , the clogging of our highways where thousands of drivers are illegal aliens, most driving without insurance; which makes uninsured motorist coverage more expensive. Can we put a price on the harm of over-population on the environment?


America and certainly California is addicted to cheap desperate labor, which is allowed to pour illegally through our broken borders. Unlike what most Americans believe, our border security relies on thousand of miles of mostly un-maintained rusted wires nailed to 4x4 stakes. This flimsy excuse for America’s border security in the post 9/11 era might be disgraceful, but it is not by accident. America turned a blind eye to the exploitation of desperate workers once before in its history when 10% of its population were slaves. Many free citizens before the Civil War would have picked cotton for a fair free-market wage, but not for a slave's wage. Before the Civil War, slave owners argued that without slavery, agriculture in the South would collapse. Following emancipation they were proven wrong. In a free marketplace, the price of all commodities, including labor, raise and fall under the influence of demand and supply until it reaches a fair and natural equilibrium. This is what we can call a “fair wage�.


Today, thanks to a cozy collaboration between some of our elected officials on one hand and on the other the unethical employers and criminal cartels that line our elected representative's pockets, our country is awash with illegal aliens that have been allowed to pour in by the millions through our broken borders. The numbers are staggering. The accounts range from 11 million to 20 million or more. No one can say for sure, because the government does not know who they are or where they are, or how many of them are criminals or potential terrorist – our government doesn't want to know! Why? Because, the drug cartels do a brisk 140 billion dollars per year while the traffickers in humans rack in 10 billions; and unethical employers and their lobbyist enrich our politicians campaign coffers unabashedly. Others who rather leave things as they are include the Feds that through the Internal Revenue Service pockets the taxes collected on 9 million bogus Social Security numbers. Among the usual suspects is the government of Mexico which relies on 17 billion dollars in remittances from illegal aliens (Mexico’s second larges source of income after oil) to bolster their economy. Naturally Mexico opposes any threat to a sizeable source of national income. The most despicable are the politicians who engorged themselves with contributions from employers of low-skilled cheap illegal workers in the likes of agriculture and construction and from unpatriotic employers of H1B visa high-skilled foreign worker who earn their way into our economy by paying Congress for their visas. Yes, our high paying technical jobs are for sale to foreigners who then work on the cheap for the likes of Microsoft Corp!


The number of illegal aliens already in the shadows of our cities, the kitchens of our restaurants, and our construction sites is not just huge, it is exploding. The under-funded Border Patrol arrests over 1.5 million aliens per year, but the most conservative estimates are that 2.5 million slip through annually and disappear among the now visible massive underclass. The numbers do not swell just on account of those that violate our borders. This illegal cheap–labor underclass burdens our healthcare system giving birth to hundreds of thousands of anchor babies, who automatically become United States citizens. Los Angeles County spent $340 million to treat the uninsured – roughly $1,000 for every taxpayer – while illegal immigrants receive medical treatment for free. Even if both parents are in the country illegally many in our government believe that the 14th Amendment gives their United State born children automatic citizenship – some legal authorities dispute that right. To put the automatic citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment in context, the United States born children of foreign diplomats legally residing in the United States are NOT granted automatic United States citizenship, so why should law-breakers avoiding detection and apprehension by illegal and mischievous means be given special treatment? Anchor babies are the illegal alien's most obvious ticket to the tax-payer footed social support services that cost us billions of dollars.


A new study from the Center for Immigration Studies is one of the first to estimate the impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Based on Census Bureau data, the study estimates that households headed by illegal aliens used $10 billion more in government services than they paid in taxes in 2002. These figures are only for the federal government; costs at the state and local level are also likely to be significant. Among the largest federal costs: Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion). The study also finds that if illegals were given amnesty, the fiscal deficit at the federal level would grow to nearly $29 billion. The estimated cost for the State of California alone is 10.5 billion dollars or $1183 per household. The breakdown includes $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens; $1.4 billion toward providing health care and $1.4 billion is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals.


On December 16th the House of Representatives passed HB 4437 which is a good attempt at putting an end to the real cost of the proverbial “cheap� illegal alien picked tomatoes. The debate on border security and immigration law enforcement will pass on to the Senate in mid February. The Senate seems bent on granting guest-worker-amnesty to 15 to 20 million illegal aliens so that crooked employers do not loose a single day of labor from their present day illegal alien worker force.


There comes a time when having an opinion is not enough, there is a time when incessantly demanding accountability from our elected representatives is not enough. I personally arrived at that point. On December 30 I filed to run for California State 41st Assembly District, which includes the cities of Santa Monica, Malibu, Malibu Heights, Topanga, Westlake Village, Agoura, Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills and Calabasas.


I am a foreign born Hispanic legal immigrant who attained naturalized citizenship through the legal process. Like most Americans, I favor legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration. Although I have compassion for the five billion people who live outside of the industrialized world who would like to live in California, I believe that the immigration process must be sustainable, orderly and in observance of the law. I will work diligently to ensure that the State of California collaborates with the Federal Government in securing our borders and in enforcing immigration law. We must be especially vigilant that the corrupt politicians under pressure from crooked employers do not add betrayal to their failure to enforce the law. Make no mistake; guest-worker-amnesty is a betrayal. Lets not accept a Guest Worker-Amnesty Program for the 15 to 20 million foreigners who have already violated our borders and taken advantage of the tax-payers. Let the employers who are addicted to cheap labor pay living wages and medical insurance to Americans instead. The net result will be less congestion, lower taxes, living wages for both low-skill and technical workers, higher quality of education moving at a faster pace and in less crowded classrooms, better and lower-cost healthcare for the elderly and solvent hospitals.

What a great article and how wonderful it is to see that Mr. Dolz is running for office in California. All states need more candidates like Mr. Dolz running for elected office.

GOOD PEOPLE....rise up and get on the ballots so we can throw these bums out and replace them with Americans who care about our country, its people, and our future.