FAIR presentation addresses impact of illegal immigration

Susan Tully, national field director of FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) gave a luncheon presentation on “Illegal Immigration and its Impact on California and the USA” at the June 19 meeting of the Georgetown Divide Republican Women Federated.

In the presentation, Tully talked about the cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers as well as President Obama’s recent Executive Order indefinitely suspending the deportation of children brought here illegally.

Tully began her talk by discussing a 2010 study done by FAIR called “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers” which is available online.

The report estimated the fiscal burden of illegal immigration on California taxpayers at $21.8 billion due to 3.2 million illegal aliens and their 627,000 U.S. born children.

The breakdown of the burden by category was $11 billion for K-12 education; $88 million for university education; $2.5 billion for Medicaid; $434 million for SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program); $3.1 billion of Justice related costs; $1.6 billion for Welfare; and $2.9 billion General.

FAIR’s study estimated that illegal aliens and their employers contributed $1.2 billion in property taxes and sales taxes which can be deducted from the $21.8 billion.

This leaves a net burden on California taxpayers at the state and local level of about $20.6 billion per year. The burden is even higher if the taxpayer’s share of their federal taxes that go for programs used by illegal aliens are also included.

“No state has been more impacted by illegal immigration than the State of California,” said Tully.

“At the national level, Obama’s executive order says he plans to use discretionary prosecution of illegal aliens. They tried to pass the Dream Act in Congress for 10 years and didn’t because they concluded that it wasn’t in the best interest of this country. But Obama said ‘Nope, I’m changing it all.’ So what he did was grant amnesty to be implemented in 60 days if Congress doesn’t do something about it.

“It’s important to know this is not just the Dream Act. It applies to all those between the ages of 16 to 30 who have lived here for five years. While they are saying it will impact 800,000 people, it’s going to impact millions. I just talked to top people in Border Control and they said they are going crazy about this and there’s nothing they can do. They see it as amnesty for 20 or 30 million people at least.

“So the bottom line, in our opinion, is that President Obama does not have the authority to do what he did. You can’t grant prosecutory discretion for an entire class of people like he has done.

“Now it’s going to be a matter of members of Congress to stand up and take him on. A Representative from Arizona has proposed a law that would undo what Obama is doing. But the Justice Department should do something because he does not have the authority to do what he has done and yet he’s doing it. This is where we need the grassroots to do something. Get your local representatives to take on Obama. He does not have the authority to do this.”

Both parties to blame

Tully spoke about blame, pointing the finger at both political parties for letting the situation get to where it is today.

“There is plenty of blame to go around for the past 30 years on illegal immigration,” she said. “Republicans have been terrible on this mostly because big business benefits in a big way from cheap labor. Where is John Boehner on this issue? Where is Eric Cantor? This is not acceptable for Republicans or Democrats alike.

“We have lots of support from liberals and conservatives on immigration. We cross all party lines and are non-partisan. Both sides have been horrible on this issue. I really think the lines are being drawn in the sand and immigration is one of them.

“This country is in serious, serious trouble, financial and otherwise. And while we are all party people, our country has to come first. And when we have people among our own making things worse, we need to stand up and voice our opinion.”

Tully addressed the hot topic of the “Fast and Furious” scandal currently making headlines across the country.

“Regarding ‘Fast and Furious,’ that is also part of discussion,” she said. “Rep. Darrell Issa is ready to have a vote of contempt but Boehner and Cantor are shying away from this. Enough. Absolutely enough. We need to call them and tell them it’s time for a vote on this.

“In 2010, Hillary Clinton made a statement that the majority of guns in Mexico were coming from the U.S. I thought, ‘Where did she come up with that?’ Then in February after (Border Patrol Agent) Brian Terry was killed, it was found out that they (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) were selling the guns. The gun control people hatched this crazy, crazy experiment of giving guns to Mexico so they could make a point that we don’t control them here and what is happening down there is a result of American gun sales. It is just so corrupt it is absolutely imperative we get to the bottom of this.

“I checked and the deficit in California is now between $20 and $25 billion. If we could make illegal immigration go away today, here’s $20 billion of those dollars,” she said. ”University costs are also higher than estimated because the California State legislature is giving aid and grants to illegal aliens. Nobody else in the country is doing this. Some states give in state tuition to illegal aliens, but no other state gives them grants and loans. Does the word aiding and abetting come to mind?

“How many of your colleges have stopped registering new students at the same time they granted in state aid and grants to illegal aliens? What are they doing? They didn’t have money to teach American citizens so what are they doing educating people who aren’t even citizens here? The year the state legislature gave aid to illegal citizens they had another bill before them to give in state rates to the children of servicemen and servicemen stationed in the state. But they turned that bill down.”

In closing, Tully encouraged people to become informed and politically active on the issue of immigration and especially illegal immigration. FAIR has an extensive amount of research materials available at its Website fairus.org/. Another source of information is called NumbersUSA. She also suggested supporting the efforts of Assemblyman Tim Donnelly.

For more of Tully’s presentation, read the related Mountain Democrat online story “FAIR’s view — Impact on immigration in California and USA.”

Contact Dawn Hodson at 530-344-5071 or dhodson@mtdemocrat.net. Follow @DHodsonMtDemo on Twitter.