Thread: State departments downplay illegal immigration effect

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State
Posted on Thu, Jun. 08, 2006

State departments downplay illegal immigration effect
CHRIS BLANK
Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Illegal immigrants housed in Missouri prisons, receiving Medicaid benefits or enrolled in state colleges and universities aren't that common, a House immigration committee was told Thursday.

Representatives from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the departments of corrections, education and social services told a special House committee created to study illegal immigration that the vast majority of people they serve are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Ed Emery, said knowing that illegal immigration isn't having much of an impact on certain parts of state government makes it easier to pinpoint what changes are needed.

"One of the things that we needed to know is how big is the problem and who is it for," said Emery, R-Lamar. "And I think today we certainly did eliminate some agencies that we know don't have to be real high on our priority list."

The immigration panel was created earlier this year by House Speaker Rod Jetton to study the impact of illegal immigration in Missouri and recommend changes to state departments and law. It comes in the midst of a national debate about how to handle immigration and what to do with those in the United States illegally.

The head of the nation's immigration enforcement agency from 1989 to 1993 urged the panel to make it a state crime to be in Missouri without a legal immigration status and to deny medical, social service and education benefits to illegal immigrants.

Gene McNary said that educators, just like employers who hire illegal immigrants, should be able to be charged with the felony of harboring an illegal immigrant if they teach people who aren't legally in the United States.

"You're going to have to create a climate in which it's very unpleasant to live in this country without a legal status," he said.

Rep. Tim Flook, pointing to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires all children in the United States be allowed a public education, cautioned against going too far with new laws.

"If we have a new law gummed up in our legal system, it really doesn't do any good," Flook, R-Liberty, said. "We can all brag about how passed a law, but it doesn't help."

The problem with trying to determine whether illegal immigrants are drawing state benefits is that many of the available statistics group legal and illegal immigrants together.

Sometimes, as with the Department of Corrections, it's because differentiating between the two wouldn't have a significant impact in the agency's operations. Other times, as with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, federal requirements bar state officials from asking about immigration status.

The Department of Corrections Director Larry Crawford said that only 422, or less than 2 percent, of the state prison population was born outside the United States. But he said the number of illegal immigrants could be even fewer because many of the foreign-born inmates are the children of military personnel.

The Department of Social Services reported that an even lower percentage of the number of people drawing Medicaid benefits are illegal immigrants. Department case workers must verify people without proof of citizenship, such as a Social Security card that appears authentic, are legal immigrants.

Janel Loch, the director of the division responsible for verifying eligibility requirements, said a snapshot of Medicaid enrollment figures from late April showed that of the 850,000 people in the program, only the emergency health care costs of 2,700 immigrants ineligible for Medicaid were covered by the state.

But because the state picks up part of the tab for emergency hospital care regardless of the patient's immigration status, there's no way to know how many of the 2,700 cases involved legal versus illegal immigrants.

While higher education institutions reported there are many foreign students on Missouri campuses, few of the students lacked permission to be in the United States.

Jim Kellerman, executive director of a state community colleges association, said his members ask about immigration status but will enroll people who can't prove they are citizens or legal immigrants. But he estimated that no more than several hundred of the 200,000 community college students aren't in the United States legally.

Mary Oetting, a lobbyist for the four-campus University of Missouri system, said students aren't accepted if they don't have citizenship or proper paperwork.

The panel plans to meet several more times to take testimony in Troy, Kansas City, Springfield and the St. Louis area.

Department case workers must verify people without proof of citizenship, such as a Social Security card that appears authentic, are legal immigrants.

Ah, "it appears to be authentic".....so they really don't know how many they have.....probably thousands more than they think....how stupid do they think people are??? All the fake numbers are classified as "legal immigrants". I wonder what the number is if you lumped them all together??

Seems to me, that even ONE is too many.

Gene McNary
"You're going to have to create a climate in which it's very unpleasant to live in this country without a legal status," he said.

This guy is right. Everywhere we go, everywhere we spend money we need to let people know that we are someone who cares about the illegal alien invasion. We're seeing day labor centers close and businesses beginning to be not so quick to jump for cheap labor. Funds are drying up. No money makes this country very unpleasant.