California may declare bankruptcy.

By: An Honest American

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as of January, 2009, roughly “11 million illegal immigrants were living within U.S. borders.” The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the DHS estimate may be low and that the actual population is probably closer to between 12 and 13 million. Regardless, both accounts place roughly 75% of these immigrants gaining entry into the United States via the U.S.-Mexico. The burden these illegal crossings cause on border state economies is devastating. California has the largest illegal immigrant population in the United States with 2.6 million illegal residents. The cost of services and lost tax revenue to local municipalities along the border is tremendous. The University of California at San Diego recently completed a study on the cost of illegal immigrants to the county of San Diego and the results are astonishing. Yet, while the individual states and local governments must bear the majority of the negative consequences from this illegal immigrant activity, the federal government has long claimed sole jurisdiction over immigration legislation and enforcement while doing very little to stop the mass migration into its border states. Consequently, the problem has only worsened – the illegal immigrant population has swelled by 27% in the last nine years alone.

In a country founded on the principle of states’ rights, how did immigration law and enforcement end up under the sole jurisdiction of the federal government? A judicial review and interpretation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution reads “The Congress shall have Power… To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” (Article I, Sec. 8). That is the only mention of any topic relating to immigration within the US Constitution. Federal authority was usurped in 1864 but challenged repeatedly in the lower courts until finally, in 1941 the current interpretation, where the federal government has exclusive ownership of the issue, found legal precedent. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that “the federal government has broad and exclusive power to regulate immigration” (Hines v. Davidowitz 1941, 52). This definition over reaches the guidance provided by the Constitution and the states’ rights were thus forever stripped away. The ruling was final and the federal government took complete control over national immigration policy and enforcement.

Since that seizure of power by the federal government in 1941, Congress has enacted three comprehensive reforms to the immigration process; the first, enacted in 1952, allowed for a much larger resident immigrant population. It consolidated multiple laws which governed immigration and naturalization to that time. It (1) reaffirmed the national origins quota system, (2) limited immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere while leaving the Western Hemisphere unrestricted, (3) established preferences for skilled workers and relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens; and (4) tightened security and screening standards and procedures (History of Immigration). The second reform, the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986 (1) legalized aliens who had resided in the United States in an unlawful status since January 1, 1982, (2) established sanctions prohibiting employers from hiring, recruiting, or referring for a fee aliens known to be unauthorized to work in the United States, (3) created a new classification of temporary agricultural worker and provided for the legalization of certain such workers; and (4) established a visa waiver pilot program allowing the admission of certain nonimmigrants without visas (History of Immigration). The most recent reform was enacted in 1990 and provided for (1) increased total immigration under an overall flexible cap of 675,000 immigrants beginning in fiscal year 1995, preceded by a 700,000 level during fiscal years 1992 through 1994, (2) created separate admission categories for family-sponsored, employment-based, and diversity immigrants, (3) revised all grounds for exclusion and deportation, significantly rewriting the political and ideological grounds and repealing some grounds for exclusion, (4) authorized the Attorney General to grant temporary protected status to undocumented alien nationals of designated countries subject to armed conflict or natural disasters, and designated such status for Salvadorans, (5) revised and established new nonimmigrant admission categories, (6) revised and extended through fiscal year 1994 the Visa Waiver Program, (7) revised naturalization authority and requirements, and (8) revised enforcement activities (History of Immigration). In each of these instances the quota limitations were substantially increased. In the latter two reforms, amnesty programs were enacted granting undocumented immigrants unprecedented access to citizenship (History of Immigration). What’s important to note is that amnesty has never helped to stem the tide of illegal immigration and that ultimately all of these federally-based solutions have failed.

As a result of these failed policies, we suffer from the largest population of undocumented immigrants in the history of our nation. Prior reforms have increased the financial burden of every American taxpayer and overwhelmed local, state, and federal governments. A lack of concrete directives within the U.S. Constitution regarding immigration has led to chaos between state and federal government agencies and has increased the burden on an already severely backlogged judicial system. Current policies, while perhaps adequate in theory, are not enforced due to a lack of political fortitude and the risk to incumbent politicians of being ousted during the next election cycle. Our nation, already enduring financial hardship and on the verge of economic collapse can no longer afford the policies of the past. Now is the time to review these erroneous policies, learn from our mistakes, engage intelligently, candidly, and respectfully amongst ourselves, and finally transform flawed policies into new and lasting immigration reform. These new policies must transcend partisan politics and restore honor and sovereignty to the United States of America and to the individual states who best understand the effects of immigration control and enforcement.

California may become the battleground state for such a transformation. California is not the largest state in the U.S. if judged by its total geographic area. Based on population and economy however, California easily dominates any other state in the union. In fact, according to the 2010 Census data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, California has a total population of 37.3 million people. This accounts for 12.0% of the total population of the United States. The next most populous states are Texas followed by New York with 25.1 million and 19.3 million residents respectively. It’s interesting to note that only four other states in the country have populations that breach the 10 million mark illustrating California’s expansive population. In fact, California’s population dwarfs 87% of the other states by a minimum margin of 300%. California also houses an estimated 25% of all of the country’s illegal immigrants.

Speaking to the states economy, California has the single largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any of the fifty states. A states GDP is calculated by taking the sum of what consumers, businesses, and government spend on final goods and services, plus investment and net foreign trade. Using a GDP is the most effective means of comparing a states economic status with that of the other states. The 2009 estimated GDP for the State of California was valued at $1.7 trillion according to the United States Department of Commerce. This represents 13.2% of the entire country’s GDP of $12.9 trillion. In comparison with the other states, the next largest GDP after California is Texas’ valued at just over $1.0 trillion. Texas is followed closely by New York with an estimated $900 billion. Interestingly, after these three states there is only one other state GDP greater than $500 billion and that’s Florida’s; netting an estimated $600 billion. To put the magnitude of the size of California’s economy into perspective, if California were its own country, it would be the eleventh largest nation in the world ranked just below Brazil and right above Italy.

Yet, for all of its population, power, and GDP, the State of California is on the verge of economic collapse. In 2009, while preparing the FY 2009-2010 budget, the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was forced to declare a Fiscal State of Emergency in order to stop a state-wide government shutdown. California was not alone in economic crisis, the United States was in the largest recession since the Great Depression of 1929. Revenue for the state had fallen by more than 20% and the state budget showed a projected $60 billion deficit. The situation was nothing short of a total financial melt-down. Drastic cuts in state programs were needed and federal assistance was required in order to sustain survivability. Funds from the federal government’s “American Recovery and Re-investment Act” were much needed but ultimately insufficient. Though coupled with the states efforts to reduce spending and increase revenue, federal aid left the state in a projected $6.9 billion shortfall. The then-Governor goes on to note: “for the second time since the Great Depression, California issued registered warrants (IOUs) to preserve cash for essential payments. The enactment of the Amended 2009 Budget Act brought the budget back into balance and facilitated the issuance of Revenue Anticipation Notes (RANs) to restore timely payment by the state. The re‑emergence of a budget shortfall, however, threatens to undermine the state’s cash management plan.”

In this statement the Governor admits that the actual deficit was more severe than previously anticipated and that the state was in danger of not being able to re-pay the IOU’s issued. The cause of the “re-emergence of a budget shortfall” the Governor was referring to can best be explained by the State’s Director of Finance, Anna Matasantos, in a Letter to the Governor dated January 8, 2010: “Since the time the Amended 2009 Budget Act was signed last July, the estimated budget gap has grown from $6.9 billion to $19.9 billion, due to the following principal reasons: 1. Decreased revenues from the ongoing effects of the historic economic recession; 2. Court decisions that have blocked implementation of some solutions approved by the Legislature in 2009; 3. The erosion in the value of some of the savings adopted in 2009; and 4. Additional costs associated with population-driven and caseload-driven entitlement programs.”

Keep in mind that “entitlement programs” are listed as one of the four major contributing factors to the state’s increasing deficit for budget year 2010-2011. In November, 2010 California elected Edmund G. Brown Jr. as Governor to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger. Within the period of three months after taking office the newly elected Governor proposed the FY 2011-2012 budget. Here are his opening remarks: “This budget proposes a far-reaching realignment of government functions by restoring to local government authority to make decisions that are best made closer to the people, not in Sacramento… We begin 2011, after the longest budget stalemate in the history of California, with a budget gap of more than $25 billion… this is a tough budget for tough times.” Not only had the previous two years budgets failed to balance but they had actually increased the size of the deficit by over three times the initial estimate in 2009.

State revenue continued to decline while payments continued to increase. Illegal immigrant populations affected both sides of this equation. The largest single source of revenue for the state is personal income tax; accounting for 41.3% of the state’s total revenue. In short, the more any one person makes the more the state makes. The problem illegal immigrants pose to this process is that they generally accept lower-wage jobs that contribute little to nothing in terms of adding to the states income tax revenues. The American Thinker reported on a study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies that found 44% of the farming, fishing, and forestry labor force was comprised of illegal immigrants. The study also reported that illegal immigrants have accepted wages between 10% and 50% lower than those accepted by non-illegal immigrants. That means that the tax paid by one legal citizen is equivalent to the taxes paid by nearly ten illegal immigrants in the given industry. The impact of this effect is compounded based on the exodus of middle class Americans leaving California.

In order to minimize the reduction of state-funded services during the recession California has raised taxes each year since 2008. The effect of raising taxes coupled with the second highest cost of living in the country has caused many legal residents of California to leave the state; an estimated 458,000 people in the last three years alone. Yet, while legal, higher-tax paying individuals are leaving, foreign-born migration into the state has increased adding an estimated 661,000 people to the states total population in the same three year period. The effect is a reduction in the states’ income. Left unchecked, current policy will lead to a continual increase in state expenditures supporting the ever-growing population of undocumented, illegal, immigrants.

While the expense to the state and federal governments of allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country is a heated topic there can be little argument that the cost is substantial when the facts are gathered and reviewed. From a local level, the cost share is high with relatively little reimbursement. Take San Diego County, which sits along the California-Mexico border. In 2008, the San Diego Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to recover the county’s costs of services to “undocumented immigrants” from the federal government based on a cost estimate prepared by San Diego State University (San Diego). The study found that “…the county of San Diego spent $101 million providing service [for illegal immigrants].” About three-fourths of this cost was from public safety. The other $26 million were spent in the areas of health, human services (recall the entitlement programs discussed earlier), and environmental issues within parks and recreation.” According to the same report the cost per illegal immigrant was $527 per immigrant per year to the county while the cost of a legal taxpaying resident was merely $35.31. These estimates were prepared using an illegal resident population of 200,000 people and do not include health care or public education expenses since these are primarily funded by the state and federal governments. The County Supervisor also noted that the federal government only reimbursed the county $2 million out of the $101 million spent.

Travel north about 2 hours and you’ll find Los Angeles County: population 9,848,011. According to the Los Angeles Almanac website, based on comparative statistics of English language learners in California school districts, the estimated illegal immigrant population in Los Angeles County is around 762,000 people. In an article published by FoxNews.com on January 19, 2011, L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich released statistics showing that welfare benefits (entitlement programs) for the children of illegal immigrants cost L.A. County $600 million in 2010. The $600 million estimate, provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, was derived by reviewing the cost of food stamps and a state welfare program known as CalWORKS. In terms of welfare payments within the county, 22% of all payments went to illegal immigrant families. Please note that CalWORKS does require US Citizenship or Legal Residency as a requirement for eligibility. The payments listed by the L.A. County Supervisor were made to legal resident children with illegal immigrant parents. Add to this $600 million bill the additional costs of health care and public safety services and the total cost estimate skyrockets to $1.6 billion dollars in 2010 alone. This represents roughly 8% of the states’ budget deficit for 2011-2012; from one county.

Let’s expand the cost of the welfare, or entitlement, programs to a state level. All of the data for this discussion comes from the Governor’s proposed 2011-2012 budget. The single largest expenditure for the State of California is spent on K-12 education. This accounts for $36 billion or 42.8% of the entire annual budget, of which FAIR estimates $7.7 billion are spent educating illegal immigrant children. The next largest spending category is on Health and Human Services (HHS) with an annual outlay of $21.2 billion representing 25.0% of the total budget. CalWORK and CalFresh (Food Stamps) fall under the cognizance of the Department of Social Services and is a branch of Health and Human Services. Of the $21.2 billion HHS budget, roughly 50% goes to Med-Cal (the state’s Medicare program). $4.2 billion or 19.8% of the HHS budget is spent on welfare and other assistance payments making it the second highest funding priority by the Department of HHS. In a Los Angeles Times article written by Anna Gorman and Teresa Watanabe, the costs of welfare and other assistance programs for illegal immigrants and their families was estimated by state officials at roughly $700 million. This accounts for 17% of all assistance payments. This means that not only do illegal immigrants receive tax payer money but, a higher percentage of illegal immigrants are on subsidy programs than that of the everyday law-abiding citizenry. Again, this was one of the four principle points on which the State Director of Finance blames the rapidly growing deficit.

Aside from the key points presented by the Director of Finance, illegal immigrants cost the state money in various other ways. Remember that none of the discussion to this point has involved health-care or state-funded legal and institutional costs. As outlined by the 2011-2012 proposed budget “exacerbating the difficulty of funding California’s correctional system is the lack of full federal reimbursement of the State’s costs for offenders who are not legal residents.” Keep in mind that the Federal government has retained sole authority over immigration law and enforcement. The budget continues with “an estimated 11.2% of inmates in the state prison system in 2010-2011 will be undocumented persons, and CDCR [California Department of Corrections] will spend approximately $938 million to incarcerate some 18,300 offenders.” Nearly $1 billion, or 4% of the deficit, is lost due to incarcerating convicted illegal immigrant felons. Note the use of the term “felon.” Only illegal immigrants housed in state correctional facilities have been included in this estimate. This estimate does not include any of the associated judicial proceeding costs.

Health care costs must be discussed. There are so many factors when determining health care costs. These costs are not solely based on physician-provided services but also on public clinics, parenting services, mental health, epidemic response, etc. In fact, there are many hidden costs that are often overlooked in public discourse. Dr. Laurence Nickey, director of the El Paso health district states “Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in the United States are readily evident along the border... The incidence of tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate.” Dr. Nickey also explains that “leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate.” These are not the only issues being presented. According to a June, 2009 article in the New England Journal of Medicine a majority (57.8%) of all new tuberculosis (TB) cases in the United States were diagnosed in foreign born persons. The TB infection rate among foreign-born persons was roughly 10 times as high as that from US-born citizens. The medical testing process for TB required of immigrants and refugees seems to indicate that foreigners who are unscreened, especially the illegal alien population are the source. Other infectious diseases on the rise in the United States that have links to increased illegal immigrant population are typhoid fever, river blindness, malaria, guinea worm, and pork tapeworm. Symptoms of these diseases include hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in some cases death .

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) website, 43% of all non-citizens under 65 have no health insurance. The main problem with this lack of insurance is that illegal immigrants are hesitant to seek preventative care which results in an increase in hospital emergency services. Remember from earlier that California is gaining roughly 200,000 foreign-born residents each year. As a result, according to the Walt Street Journal, between 1996 and 2006 emergency visits jumped 32% . FAIR estimates that the uncompensated cost to California based on providing health care to illegal immigrants was valued at $1.4 billion in 2009. This cost represents another 5% of the budget deficit. The effect on medical services from this influx of illegal immigrants can best be summed up by Medeleine Cosman, Ph.D writing in the Journal of American Medicine in 2005, “What is unseen is their [illegal aliens’] free medical care that has degraded and closed some of America’s finest emergency medical facilities, and caused hospital bankruptcies: 84 California hospitals are closing their doors.”

The costs to the State of California are incredible. The areas discussed above; entitlement programs, education, health care, and public services including institutional expenses combine to equal an eye-popping $10.738 billion. This total represents 50%, or one-half, of the states current budget shortfall as determined mainly by government-provided statistics. There are numerous other costs associated with maintaining the states’ illegal immigrant population that aren’t as easily determined. According to a Fox News report dated January 19, 2011, immigration watch dog groups have estimated the total cost to California’s economy to be as high as $21.8 billion which would represent 87% of the propose 2011-2012 budget shortfall. Either way, it cannot be denied that the states’ illegal immigrant population is draining the state of preciously-needed revenue for essential state services.

The federal government must take measure to enforce existing immigration law in order to begin addressing this problem. Newly-proposed legislation must deny amnesty for those who have broken the law. The last fifty-six years have proven that amnesty doesn’t stop, or even slow, the introduction of new illegal immigrants to the U.S. In fact, the states’ Legislative Affairs Office has shown that the population of illegal immigrants coming into California and the United States is rising. The time for name-calling and racist tactics are over. Californian’s and all Americans must work together to adopt a policy that will ensure fiscal solvency of the states and of the federal government. Laws, like that introduced in Arizona, will begin to be proposed across the nation as a matter of necessity. Those opposed to the law should not condemn it, or make personal attacks against those who wrote the laws - as the states’ legislatures are simply trying to protect their state’s well-being. Instead, concerns should be addressed to local officials who can convey the message to the states’ legislative bodies. The kind of infighting amongst the states that we have seen within the past 24 months is both counter-productive to addressing the issue of illegal immigration and further raises the indebtedness of the states involved. If the problem of illegal immigration is not resolved, the state of California will continue toward bankruptcy and a break-down in basic government services will happen – it’s only a matter of time.

References

Cary, Lee. “Illegal Immigration and Low Wage Labor.” AmericanThinker.com. American Thinker, 06 Feb. 2008. Web. 20 Jan 2011.

Constitution of the United States. 1787. Archices.gov. National Archives, n.d. Web. 21 Jan 2011.

County of San Diego. County Supervisor’s Office. Board of Supervisor’s. “Summary of Estimating the Cost to the County of San Diego,California, of Services Delivered to Undocumented Immigrants During FY 2006- 2007.” SDCounty.ca.gov. County Supervisor’s Office. 25 Sep 2007. Web. 06 Dec 2010.

Federation for American Immigration Reform. A History of U.S. Immigration Laws. Washington D.C.: Federation for American Immigration Reform, 2008. Print.

Federation for American Immigration Reform. Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians: Executive Summary. FAIR, 2005. Web. 17 Jan. 2011.

Federation for American Immigration Reform. Illegal Immigration and Health Care. FAIR, 2007. Web. 17 Jan. 2011.

Gorman, Anna and Teresa Watanabe. “Deficit may Trigger Anti-illegal Immigration Ballot Measure.” LATimes.com. Los Angeles Times, 10 Jul. 2009. Web. 18 Jan 2011.

Hines v. Davidowitz , 312 U.S. 52 (1941)

Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) of 1986. Pub. L. 99-603. 100 Stat. 3359. 6 Nov. 1986. Web. 19 Jan 2011.

Jordan, Miriam. “Illegal Immigration Enters the Health-Care Debate.” OnlineWSJ.com. Wall Street Journal, 15 Aug. 2009. Web. 21 Jan 2011.

Los Angeles Almanac. Given Place Media. 2011. Web. 20 Jan. 2011.

Matasantos, Anna. “Director of Finance Letter to the Governor.” Ca.gov, Jan 2010. Web. 07 Jan 2011.

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. L. 104-193. 110 Stat. 2105. 22 Aug. 1996. Web. 17 Jan 2011.

Schwarzenegger, Arnold. “State of California: Governor’s Budget for 2010-2011.” Ca.gov, Jan. 2010. Web. 06 Jan 2011.

State of California. Legislative Analyst’s Office. Budget Division. “2010-2011 Budget: California’s Fiscal Outlook, Figure 5: The LAO’s Demographic Forecast .” Lao.ca.gov. Legislative Analyst’s Office. 18 Nov. 2009. Web. 19 Jan 2011.

State of California. Legislative Analyst’s Office. Criminal Justice and Judiciary Division. “California’s Annual Costs to Incarcerate an Inmate, 2008-2009.” Lao.ca.gov. Legislative Analyst’s Office. n.d. Web. 05 Dec 2010.

State of California. Department of Finance. Office of the Governor. “2011-2012 California Budget.” Ebudget.ca.gov. Dept. of Finance, 2011. Web. 21 Jan. 2011.

United States. Census Bureau. “2010 Census; population change.” 2010.census.gov. Census Bureau, Jan 2011. Web. 07 Jan 2011.

United States. Dept. of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Economic Downturn Widespread Among States in 2009: Advance 2009 and Revised 1963-2008 GDP-by-State Statistics.” Bea.gov. Dept. of Commerce, Nov. 2010. Web. 07 Dec 2010.

United States. Dept. of Homeland Security. Office of Immigration Statistics. “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2009.” DHS.gov. Dept. of Homeland Security, Jan. 2010. Web. 05 Dec 2010.

"Welfare Tab for Children of Illegal Immigrants Estimated at $600 million in L.A. County.” FoxNews.com. Fox News, 19 Jan. 2011. Web. 21 Jan. 2011.

World Factbook, 2009. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.