Today, Fox News' William La Jeunesse posted a blog at http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/04/28/your-money-for-immigration-overhaul/
The blog read as follows:
Comprehensive
immigration reform and "pathway to citizenship" are Washington-speak
for legalizing the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants currently
living in the United States. And at a time of high unemployment and
mounting federal debt, one important component is the legislation's
impact on the federal budget.
According to studies from both the left and
the right, an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of illegal immigrants
don't have high school diplomas, compared to about 15 percent of
American adults. Illegal immigrants typically work in low-wage careers,
such as housework, food service, gardening and construction, earning
roughly $15,000 to $30,000 a year.
In some cases, those wages would qualify
them for social welfare programs like food stamps, Medicaid and
refundable tax credits -- programs that you don't need to pay federal
income tax to qualify for.
CLICK HERE FOR TAX CALCULATOR ON IMMIGRATION
The latest immigration bill hasn't been
scored yet by the Congressional Budget Office, but many of the
components are similar to those in the failed 2007 immigration bill,
which would have cost an estimated $30 billion over five years,
including $20 billion for enforcement measures. The CBO also said the
2007 bill would have added $15 billion to the federal deficit.
FoxNews.com's latest taxpayer calculator estimates how much someone in your income range would have paid on average under the 2007 bill.
People earning under $15,000 would have
paid an estimated $1.27 over five years. The same average for those
making $30,000 to $50,000k would be $48. The bill would have cost
Americans bringing home $100,000 to $200,000 an average of $365 over
five years, or $73 a year.
Staffers and sources on Capitol Hill say
that, like the 2007 bill, the latest legislation would require
citizenship applicants to learn English and pay a fine, but it also may
contain a "touch back" provision – in which people would go to their
home countries to register but would be allowed to "wait in line" while
working in the U.S. with visas.
The conservative Heritage Foundation says
comprehensive immigration reform will cost U.S. taxpayers much more --
about $90 billion a year, once low-skilled immigrants are fully
legalized. The organization says these immigrants will receive an
average of $3 to $4 in benefits for every $1 paid in taxes.
“If you are adding millions and millions of
very poorly educated people into the welfare system, into Social
Security and Medicare, you are going to have a huge expansion of
government costs,” says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the
Heritage Foundation.
I posted a comment, but it doesn't appear that it was approved. In fact, there aren't ANY comments approved yet. I'll repost it here for your benefit:
If the current group of legislators in D.C. really think the priority for America is Comprehensive Immigration Reform (a.k.a. Amnesty), they truly are the most out-of-touch group to set foot in the Capitol in recent memory. Let's consider just 3 issues: jobs, safety, and national security.
If the national unemployment rate is hovering around 10% (without considering those who have given up looking for a job and rely on welfare, and those who have been hired for temporary work such as census workers, etc), does Congress and the open borders lobby really think Americans will buy the line "illegal aliens are just here here to do the work that Americans won't do?"
According to a study conducted by the GAO in conjunction with the Bureau of Crime Statistics for Congressman Steve King, 25 Americans are killed every day by an illegal alien--12 by murder and 13 by negligent homicide like drunk driving (see http://www.firecoalition.com/OBC/CRIMINALALIENSTATISTICS.pdf). The math on that equates to 78,775 Americans killed by illegal aliens since 9/11--but who's counting? Certainly not Congress or the media.
Finally, in case anyone has missed the news lately, the southern border is still way out of control and not secure. I know Mr. La Jeunesse uses the number of 12 million illegal aliens in our country, but have you noticed that the media has been using that figure since 2005. Does anyone really believe that no new net illegal aliens have invaded our country since then? In fact, our own federal law enforcement--you know, the ones like CBP and ICE who are actually on the front lines--informed Congress that the numbers just in 2005 was between 4 and 10 million because they miss between 70-90% of them. (Source: http://firecoalition.com/downloads/A_Line_In_The_Sand_Report.pdf). If the number was 12 million in 2005, and you are conservative on the number who have entered since then (4 million x 5 years), the number is really 32 million today, and that number is dwarfed by the number of visa overstays in the country. Now, I know we've really "tightened up" security at our ports of entry and airports, but did anyone check all of these illegal aliens to see if just one out of 32 million might be a terrorist? Because if they didn't stop him, could he have carried in a weapon of mass destruction?
I haven't even touched the effects of the illegal alien invasion on things like social spending, pollution, other crime, and cultural shifts, so let's take a big reality shot to the arm and continue to hammer our representatives to stop pandering to illegal aliens and the open border groups like National Council of the Race (NCLR), MALDEF, and the likes.
Arizona has it right, if the feds won't do the right thing, the states have an obligation to protect their citizenry.
Keep up the fight,
Jason Mrochek
Executive Director
FIRE Coalition
http://www.FIRECoalition.com
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