ILLEGAL
IMMIGRATION’S BIG QUESTION
FOR
SAN DIEGO.
By Bob “Sully” Sullivan, Host of
“THE COALITION” on NEWSRADIO – 95.7/AM600 KOGO.
in the United States are feeling a range of negative effects from the increased
public attention and stepped up enforcement measures that have accompanied the
growing national debate over illegal immigration.
Do
you think that illegal immigrants are REALLY a problem here in san
diego?
Or
is it “much ado about nothing?”
Overall,
do you think illegal immigrants do more to help the country, or do more to hurt
the country?
Here
is why I ask…
Fifty-six per cent of Harris Poll respondents think illegal immigrants do more
to hurt the country, while 37 per cent say they help the
country.
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that more than 9 million
illegal immigrants are currently living in the country.
recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center calculated the number of undocumented
immigrants at 11.5 million…mostly in Cali! [fornia…]
Polling
Data
|
Hurt |
56% |
|
Help |
37% |
|
Neither |
5% |
|
No |
2% |
at all levels would likely have realized significantly greater revenues if jobs
held by illegal aliens had been filled by legal U.S. residents
instead.
spending on illegal aliens amounts to $29 billion, finds Fiscal Burden of
Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers. The lion’s share of the costs of illegal
immigration is borne by state and local taxpayers an estimated $84.2 billion.
18 states, expenditures on illegal aliens exceeded the size of those states’
budget deficits in FY 2011.
have two questions for you:
1.
Do
you think illegal immigrants who are living and working in the United States now
should be offered a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal
status, or do you think they should be deported back to their native
country?
2 If
illegals weren’t allowed to become citizens, what would be the problem with
allowing illegal aliens who are already here to stay as guest
workers?
There
are at least three major problems with allowing illegal aliens to stay here as
guest workers.
Number
one,
many Americans don’t realize this, but there are countless millions of
foreigners waiting patiently to enter the United States the right way. To allow
the illegals that are already here to stay rewards lawbreakers and makes the
people who respected our laws look like chumps.
Number
two,
when you reward illegal behavior and treat people who obey the law like chumps,
you can expect more lawbreaking. In other words, if we allow the illegals that
are already here to stay here, we can expect another massive onslaught of
illegals to enter our country because we’ll have shown them that breaking our
laws pays.
three,
if we give the illegal aliens who are already here free passes that allow them
to continue working and create a guest worker program, there’s a very real
danger that what we’ll end up with is a guest worker program AND massive numbers
of illegals pouring into the country. As was mentioned earlier in this FAQ, the
politicians in Washington have a heavy incentive to keep the flow of illegals
going and they’ve lied before about crackdowns on illegal immigration. So, you
can’t simply take the Federal government’s word for it when they say they’re
going to toughen up security in return for a guest worker program. Americans
will only be able to believe it when it happens.
Is
immigration policy a matter of principle or utility?
According
to a recent study from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California,
the e-Verify legislation reduced Arizona’s population of working-age
illegal immigrants by about 17 percent, or roughly 92,000 people, in just
a single year. And the FAST
attrition was mainly achieved through voluntary compliance: the number of
employers prosecuted under the law can be counted on one
hand.
results suggest that maybe — just maybe — America’s immigration rate isn’t
determined by forces beyond any lawmaker’s control.
public policy can make a difference after all. Maybe we could have an
immigration system that looked as if it were designed on purpose, not embraced
in a fit of absence of mind.
FISCAL BURDEN OF Illegal Immigration – The $113 Billion Dollar Drain on the
American Taxpayer
$113,000,000,000
- This year's cost of US illegal immigration. Approximately 75% of that cost is
absorbed by the states.
$1117 - The average amount you and your family paid
in taxes this year to support illegals.
$52,000,000,000 - The cost of educating the children
of illegals. This is by far the single largest cost to the American taxpayer.
$2,700 - The
average dollar amount a single illegal household costs the US federal
government.
51%
- The percentage of Mexican immigrant households that use at least one major
welfare program. 28% use more than one.
1,400,000- the number of illegal immigrant households
that use at least one major welfare program. (food stamps, WIC, school lunch,
Medicaid, TANF, SSI, and public/rent-subsidized
housing)
A
study released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
estimates that illegal immigration now costs federal and local taxpayers $113
billion a year.
report, The Fiscal
Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, is the
most comprehensive analysis of how much the estimated 13 million illegal aliens
and their U.S.-born children cost federal, state and local
governments.
cost estimates are based on an extensive analysis of federal, state and local
spending data. The Fiscal Burden of
Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers examines dozens of government programs
that are available to illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children, both legally
and fraudulently.
report provides detailed analysis of the impact of illegal immigration on
education, health care, law enforcement and justice, public assistance, and
other government programs.
The report also accounts for taxes paid by
illegal aliens about $13 billion a year, resulting in a net cost to taxpayers of
about $100 billion.
the key findings of The Fiscal Burden of
Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers:
- The $113
billion in outlays for services and benefits to illegal aliens and their
families represents an average cost to native-headed households of $1,117 a
year. Because the burdens of illegal immigration are not evenly distributed, the
costs are much higher in states with large illegal alien
populations.
- Education
for the children of illegal aliens represents the single largest public
expenditure at an annual cost of $52 billion. Nearly all of that cost is
absorbed by state and local governments.
- The
federal government recoups about one-third of its share of the costs of illegal
immigration in the form of taxes collected. States, which bear a much greater
share of the costs, recoup a mere 5 percent of their expenditures from taxes
paid by illegal aliens.
- Granting
amnesty to illegal aliens, as President Obama and others propose, would not
significantly increase tax revenues generated by current illegal aliens.
However, over time, amnesty would dramatically increase public costs as newly
legalized aliens become eligible for all means-tested government
programs.
