May 15, 2007 - 11:48PM
Illegal immigrants have a bad effect on our economy

Editor:
I have a concern that has the potential of affecting us all here in the Valley and across the nation: illegal immigrants and their burden on us taxpayers.

For example, BISD is overcrowded with illegal children who either live in Mexico and cross every day to attend our schools or live here illegally with their parents and siblings.

This puts a burden on the teachers and has a huge impact on budget issues.

I often hear people from Matamoros saying how nice it is that our schools don’t charge anything for putting their children through school, providing meals and even transportation.

Just visit any public school and take note of the Mexican license plates dropping off and picking up students. They don’t realize that this is largely possible because of us the taxpayers.

This is another reason the appraisal district has to raise taxes on our properties every year to support all the abuse.

Another important factor is the fact that in any given month, dozens, perhaps hundreds of illegal women give birth in our hospitals without anyone, at any level, doing anything about it. I personally know several women who live in Matamoros and have given birth more than once at our expense and yes, their newborns are given U.S. citizenship. How is this possible? Get pregnant and don’t worry about medical costs, uncle Sam will take care of them including the newborns.

By continuing to allow this to happen, we actually are encouraging people to come over illegally and drain the few benefits that we have. This is unacceptable. Some people who are either citizens or live legally have so many barriers to accessing health care, it’s sometimes impossible; yet we provide free service to the illegal immigrants.

The message that our government is sending to its people is that if you work and live here legally, they will find a way to penalize you. But they will not find ways to penalize the countless illegal aliens who are draining our resources.

I have been keeping up with the news about the illegal woman who took refuge in a Chicago church to avoid being deported, claiming that her son is a U.S. citizen. Well, that lady can take her child back to Mexico; nobody is going to stop her from doing so. She should have thought about that before coming to our country.

Finally, I am glad our government is now checking (rounding up) workplaces for people working illegally; I hope employers can be held accountable and fined. I surely hope that this practice not only continues but that the frequency is increased.
I hope some lawmaker reads this article and take notice and do something about this abuse. I am so fed up with this system, if nothing is done to fix this mess; pretty soon our country may go broke. We won’t even be able to fund the global war on terror.

Austin and Washington, please do something drastic about this growing problem.

Rogelio Garza
Brownsville

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