Basically, nobody outside California knows anything about the history of illegal immigration, so anything the Heritage Foundation says about the likely costs of another amnesty is automatically "controversial." But, in California ... From the Los Angeles Times:
L.A. County officials worried about costs of immigration overhaul
With an estimated 1.1 million people in L.A. County illegally, officials fear that the county will get stuck with many costs for those who apply for citizenship.
By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times
May 11, 2013, 5:05 p.m.
WASHINGTON — Few regions will absorb the impact of future immigration reforms more than Los Angeles County, home to an estimated 1.1 million people in the country illegally, one-tenth of the nation's total.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee began debating the bipartisan immigration bill last week, county officials voiced concerns that local taxpayers will be "left holding the bag" to pay for the brunt of healthcare and other services for multitudes of immigrants who apply for citizenship.
Local and state officials believe the overhaul bill will encourage those in the country illegally to come out of the shadows and turn to local services during the proposed 13-year-long pathway to citizenship.
"The one thing that's really clear as day is that the federal government is going to be protecting itself against costs, and we're going to be left holding the bag," said Mark Tajima, an analyst with the county's chief administrative office.
In Washington last week for the start of the debate, county officials, including Supervisors Don Knabe and Zev Yaroslavsky, warned of a "major cost shift'' to state and local governments from the proposed legislation and pressed Congress to provide federal aid to help cover future costs.
Officials could not, however, provide a figure on the potential tab. Instead, as they made the rounds on Capitol Hill, they pointed to the $800 million the county received in the last big immigration overhaul signed by President Reagan in 1986.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), after meeting with county officials, brought up the county's concerns at the Judiciary Committee meeting and directed her staff to look into the possibility of creating a "state impact assistance" fund, similar to the $4 billion provided to local and state governments in the 1986 bill. ...
A memo to the Board of Supervisors from a top county government affairs officer said some of the provisions of the bills "would be especially unfair because newly legalized individuals would be paying taxes, fines and fees to the federal government, but state and local governments, such as the county, would have to bear most of the cost of services provided to them."
Although the county provides emergency care to all, regardless of legal status, county officials say the legislation could significantly increase its costs for non-emergency care. They point to an estimate that up to 446,000 of such immigrants in the county have no health insurance.
Los Angeles County spends roughly $600 million a year on healthcare for immigrants in the country illegally, officials said.
States are also concerned about how they will pay for services, including English proficiency classes sought by applicants for legal status at a time when funding for such adult school programs has been cut. Community colleges and other institutions will be flooded with demand.
"For states like California and New York, there is the potential of a lot of people coming to the state and local government for assistance," said Sheri Steisel, senior federal affairs counsel for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Just because the federal government has decided not to provide access to federal benefit programs does not mean that the need goes away."
County officials want Congress to create a fund similar to the $4-billion allocation in 1986 or make applicants for legal status eligible for federal benefits sooner. Some 720,000 of the 2.7 million immigrants granted amnesty nationwide as a result of the 1986 overhaul lived in Los Angeles County.
Interesting number: over a quarter of the unexpectedly large total of illegal aliens amnestied last time were in Los Angeles County. In turn, L.A. County turned out to be the central engine of the 2000s Housing Bubble and Bust, both in Los Angeles County, but, even worse, in areas where people are spun off too from L.A., such as the Inland Empire, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
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The supply of ambitious small-timers around the L.A. basin is a dime a dozen, guys in the mold of Villar, who calculate along a simple Numbers=Power line, but the L.A. mayoralty is relatively weak and most of the county supes (who've all seemingly been there forever, due to having actual power) possess surnames that don't sound bueno on Spanish radio. Above them is the sheriff, another position that only gets changed out every quarter-century or so. You wouldn't know from the amnesty lust sweeping the overclass like Beatlemania that there are still local-level fissures ripe for exploitation, if someone will just do math in public
Feinstein's like a wind-up doll with her stock bailout answer to every question, really the kind of official you don't have to read the story to know her latest idea. Is the proposed truckload for L.A. County just extra dessert after she proposed the busted mortgage shopping spree
I live here. California is just northern Mexico. It just is. Even if we closed the border now, it would remain that way. Sigh. You folks from elsewhere don't know what was lost.
It's really only fair for LA county to pay the costs, associated with the amnesty. LA is where they live and work, so LA benefits much more from the illegals much more than Lincoln, Nebraska, for example. When the illegals are legalized, they become more vibrant. LA will also benefit more from the increased vibrancy than poor whitebread Vermont.
Also, Feinstein should resign for questioning the benefits of Hispanic immigrants. It's not even as if she's expressed concern over the problems of illegal immigration. These people will be legal. She should follow Richwine's lead, we're trying to have a 21st century discussion. She is also inciting anti-Semitism by displaying such naked money-grubbing concern. Obviously just some KKK redneck in a Feinnstein mask.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/05/10/the-crucifixion-of-jason-richwine-n1592054/page/full
cowersatives
I heart Rob :)
These aren't increased expenses for L.A. county, they're greater opportunities---secure investments in a vibrant future, if you will. L.A. is surely sowing the seeds of the next 'greatest generation' and doesn't even realize it. No more are the tax contributing working-class whites of East L.A. like my late grandfather. Sure, they enriched the city coffers, but what did they ever do to enrich the community's notion of self-righteousness? Today L.A. is sitting on an ever-accreting heap of ethnic status-whore gold, the greatest of fiat currencies known to Western man. I for one welcome L.A. county's mediocre Mestizo masters.
"Today L.A. is sitting on an ever-accreting heap of ethnic status-whore gold, the greatest of fiat currencies known to Western man. I for one welcome L.A. county's mediocre Mestizo masters."
LOL, this is why I read your comment section, Steve.
If Feinstein had two neurons to rub together she would use that Richwine study to make a case for federal funding for x number of illegals to come out of the shadows in California. But I guess she can't do that now that everyone who is anyone agrees that study was just racist gobbledygook and that Richwine has no credibility.
It will be interesting to see who replaces Senators Feinstein and Boxer when they go. Both are aging rapidly and will be either dying or retiring within the next decade. When that happens, it will be a real wake up call for the white liberals who have till now have been ascendant within the Democratic Party. It is more than coincidental that California's two Senators are both Jewish, Female, rich, and from Northern California. They sat at the top of a multi-ethnic coalition acting as elite Kingmakers passing out money and influence to anyone with a good story who was not either male, white, or Republican. But those days are going to end.
My guess is that as whites lose influence within the Democratic party much of what they hold dear will disappear with them. The Sun People have no use for the environment, certainly far less so than white Republicans ever did so that will die. Ditto for all the quality of life issues that were so near and dear to those of Feinstein's and Boxer's contemporaries. Both the primary and higher education systems will go into a new dark age. Whatever little money California has will go to keep the vibrant people from reverting back to third world status and everything else will have to go.
If California gets lucky, we might end up electing a couple of Asian Senators as compromise candidates rather than full on Reconquistas. You see this in cities like Oakland and San Francisco that have Asian Mayors. They are weak and ineffectual but better than the other savages that are part of their coalition.
""""Rob writes -When the illegals are legalized, they become more vibrant. LA will also benefit more from the increased vibrancy than poor whitebread Vermont."""
Maybe California and LA county need to institute a vibrancy tax to pay for the new services.
Waitasec! I thought "bringing them in from the shadows" was going to let them (at last!) join the real economy and pay their taxes as they earnestly wish to.
In fact, now that they are paying taxes they will (blessedly!) be able to pay for our Social Security and take care of us for the rest of our lives,
i don't get this. You mean thay ae going to want MORE freebies, not fewer when they are legalized?
But once they're out of the shadows they will boost the economy and be contributors and all that jazz
I remember the reality of the 86 amnesty. Sweatshops in LA hired crooked immigration lawyers who dummied up docs for illegals. I was running a legal, air-conditioned, health benefits and overtime plant in the Southeast at the time. Guess who went under?
Crime pays- big time.
OTOH, I know of a factory in the NE that got caught with 500 illegals. They had a million dollar fine. But because they paid legal wages, and O/T, they escaped criminal prosecution. Not sure why they wanted illegals- I guess they thought they'd work harder.
Cracking down on Mfrs works- if we'd do it!
"A memo to the Board of Supervisors from a top county government affairs officer said some of the provisions of the bills "would be especially unfair because newly legalized individuals would be paying taxes, fines and fees to the federal government, but state and local governments, such as the county, would have to bear most of the cost of services provided to them."
This is why it is important to jack up property taxes instead of income taxes. Businesses and illegals can dodge income taxes with loopholes and evasion. They can't dodge property taxes. Landlords collect property taxes and pay them regardless of who tenants are because landlords don't want their property sold on the county courthouse steps. California is stupid to have a high nominal income taxes when most of their tax paying base can avoid the taxes. Texas uses property taxes. Nobody misses a property tax payment because there is no way to avoid them.
OTOH, I know of a factory in the NE that got caught with 500 illegals. They had a million dollar fine. But because they paid legal wages, and O/T, they escaped criminal prosecution. Not sure why they wanted illegals- I guess they thought they'd work harder.
Cracking down on Mfrs works- if we'd do it!
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We have the junta de ochos and pretty much all the 'immigration reformers' on record that the reform is not an amnesty. No one gets an amnesty. It's also immigration reform, not labor law reform. The neodocumented aliens will have to show that they lived and worked in the US for whatever length of time, right?
The soon-to-be-documented immigrants employers' likely violated other labor laws. We know that's at least possible: the employers broke laws hiring the undocumented, and they probably broke any other laws that they thought would be profitable and unpunished. While they were living in the shadows, the undocumented had little recourse. Surely some lawyer or another has thought about doing well by doing good on behalf of the New Americans. The New Americans could show their loyalty and gratitude to the people of the US by bringing their employers to justice.
Businesses and illegals can dodge income taxes with loopholes and evasion. They can't dodge property taxes. California is stupid to have a high nominal income taxes when most of their tax paying base can avoid the taxes. Texas uses property taxes. Nobody misses a property tax payment because there is no way to avoid them.
Anon, God bless ya! You bring humor into the dank corner of the internet that is my life. You take the perspective that a fair, and well-run government is the goal, and so are confused as to what bugs and features are:
You think that people being able to avoid and evade income tax is a bug. The dishonest and high income people of California will have you know that those are features.
Property taxes are difficult to evade and the state has simple means of forcing compliance. You claim those are features, but they are bugs.
So the feds get the "taxes, fines, and fees" and California doesn't? So let California tax them just like they tax white folks!
I suspect that most of the illegals are in the famous 47% who aren't currently paying any federal taxes whatsoever. In fact they are running various tax scams like claiming imaginary children to get federal tax subsidies. It should be trivial to extract enough cash from the currently undertaxed Mexican population to pay their way and have enough left over to pay for all the white folks social security, too.
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