That people can claim illegal immigration is not hurting America or costing us much money with a straight face is amazing. And frightening. Their ignorance in this area no doubt spills over into others.
Someone on this blog asserted that the cost of caring for illegal aliens is a “drop in the bucket” for the individual taxpayer, but the person fails to take into account the aggregate cost to the states for educating, medicating and incarcerating people who who shouldn’t be receiving any benefits from the government. If charities want to help pay for these services, that’s fine. But our government has no right taxing us to death to pay welfare for illegal aliens. It’s repugnant enough that our money’s used to pay wefare for American citizens.
I’ve linked to this report from Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) before, but this story puts it in context. Working Californians have spent an estimated $9 billion on nearly 3 million non-citizens in the state. The largest expenses go toward:
- Educating children whose first language isn’t English
- Caring for illegal aliens who have no health insurance
- Feeding and housing illegal aliens who commit crimes (nearly 30 percent of federal prisoners are illegal aliens)
And it’s only getting worse. But what is life without a little disagreement?
Gerardo Gonzalez, director of Cal State San Marcos’ National Latino Research Center, which compiles data on Latinos, criticized the report. He said it does not measure some of the contributions that immigrants make to the state’s economy.“Beyond taxes, these workers’ production and spending contribute to California’s economy, especially the agricultural sector,” Gonzalez said.
Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are the backbone of the state’s nearly $28 billion-a-year agricultural industry, Gonzalez and other researchers say.
More than two-thirds of the estimated 340,000 agriculture workers in California are noncitizens, most of whom are believed to be illegal immigrants, according to a 1998 study on farmworkers prepared for the state Legislature.
Local farmers say migrant farmworkers are critical to their businesses, and without them they would have to close their farms or move their operations overseas.
Martin [author of the report] disagrees. He said illegal immigrants displace American workers by taking low-skilled jobs, keep wages low by creating an overabundance of workers and stifle innovation by reducing the need for mechanized labor.
“The product of the illegal immigrant is not included (in the report) because if that is an essential product it will get done one way or another,” Martin said. Employers “would have to pay better wages or invest money on mechanization.”
And if all else fails, attack the messenger’s credibility:
“I think FAIR is without doubt an extremist organization that tries to portray itself as a mainstream group,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee, an advocate group for legal and illegal immigrants.
Advice for liberals: Find a word other than “extremist” if you want to insult conservatives. If presenting factual and supportable data marks one as an extremist, I’ll take that over “mainstream” any day.
Will California find relief, or will Californians continue to flee the state and head north, taking their hard-earned income with them? Will other states soon suffer to this extent under the burden of illegal aliens? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I know one thing for certain.
I won’t be asking George Bush.
