Rep. Ted Poe: Illegals Are Breaking The Bank

Unemployment lines continue to grow as does the American people’s frustration over a government that continues to spend more money than they have. The current administration’s solution is to raise taxes, not cut spending. Times are tight for American families, and as they are looking at ways to make their dollars go further, the federal government should look at ways of keeping American dollars a little closer to home.

While the United States continues to drown in debt, there was some good news south of the border. According to reports, money sent back to Mexico is on the rise. Recently, the Bank of Mexico reported remittances totaling $1.95 billion in August, up 9.32 percent from the same month last year. Apparently, the U.S. job market isn’t tough for everyone.

A Mexican-based financial company is forecasting $22 billion in remittances for 2010 making it Mexico’s second highest revenue maker behind crude oil. Not all of this comes from the 20 million illegal workers. There are people that have come to our country legally to work, but they also send much of their income south of the border. These remittances are an economic drain on America, but Mexico would collapse without them.

Not only are we not recirculating billions of U.S. dollars earned in our country back into our own economy, we are also dolling out taxpayer-funded social services to millions who don’t contribute to the system.

The open-borders crowd continues to insist that those working here illegally contribute more to our economy than the benefits they illegally receive, but $22 billion dollars taken out of our economy says otherwise.

It’s not just the money being sent home, it’s also the costs incurred here. The Federation for American Immigration Reform has estimated that the total cost of education for illegals is $52 billion a year. The report says Texas is saddled with $16.4 billion of that amount.

However, it is important to point out that this cost includes American-born children of people living here illegally. It is argued that we can’t count these children because under current policy, they are considered U.S. citizens, even though their parents are not and even though many of their mothers illegally came to the U.S. for the sole purpose of having a child. While I am not so sure the correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment makes these children automatic citizens, the Supreme Court has not issued a ruling on the issue of birthright citizenship.

The Harris County Hospital District, the public hospital system in Houston, Texas, found that 60 percent of births over the last four years were by women living here illegally. It’s estimated, in Texas alone, there are 1.5 million illegal immigrants, to which 60,000 babies are born to their households annually. In fact, a Pew Hispanic Center study revealed that 8 percent of U.S. babies a year are born to mothers here illegally.                     

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