County Issue / Population Slowdown a...

Lee Pliscou, Attorney, California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard

It’s as if Wilson and (Congressman Elton) Gallegly are in the life raft and they’ve gotten aboard and they say, “We’re aboard, now let’s pull up the ladder” while there are still other people trying to climb up. What they don’t realize is that not only is the life raft big enough for everybody, but they need those other people in the life raft. Immigrants are the scapegoats for the bad economy. First of all, this plan is not going to stop illegal immigration. Secondly, immigrants create new businesses, they create new markets and generally stimulate the economy. Whatever people want to say about immigrants as scapegoats, the truth is immigrants--including illegal immigrants--pay way more in state, federal and local taxes than they will ever take back in benefits. Politically, you can attack a group that has absolutely no political clout in terms of votes, but our economy depends on immigrants, both documented and undocumented. If it weren’t for the low wages that labor contractors can pay their workers to work in the fields, for example, we would not be able to buy products in the markets at the prices we pay.

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State Sen. Cathie Wright, (R-Simi Valley)

We have to do something. The biggest problem is it really has to be done by the federal government, because it’s their mandates that put us in the position we’re in. I have no problem educating the children of illegal immigrants if the federal government pays for it. Otherwise, we’re in trouble financially. We’re running a deficit of $3 (billion) to $9 billion every year, and $3 billion of it could be eliminated every year by tightening the borders or by the federal government paying for its mandates. There should be a procedure for people to cross the border. The biggest problem is there’s no orderly transit of people across the border and into the system. I can’t blame these people for coming to the U.S., because as bad as things are here, they’re much better than they are in Mexico. We should get on the stick and pass (the North American Free Trade Agreement). If we want these people to come in, we should put some kind of control at the border, check these people out, make sure they can speak English. That way, we could make sure they’re prepared to become citizens.

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Armando Garcia, Chairman, Coalition for Immigrant Rights in Oxnard

The immigrants that come to the United States come to work. A few might take advantage of services the government provides, not because they’re looking for that but because there is no work for undocumented workers. If the governor wants to change the Constitution, he should go back to Square One. Who were the first illegal immigrants to come to this land? He would be the first to go. What was the basis of the American Revolution? Taxation without representation. They’re collecting taxes from illegal immigrants without giving them benefits. What they collect from them in taxes is more than what these people are getting back. If they get rid of illegal immigrants, then I would say the economy of the state of California would be in bad shape. Who’s going to harvest the fruit, work in the service industries? Politicians are using this as a political event to get reelected. Immigrants are here to stay. This is nothing new. Every time the economy is in bad shape, they blame it on people without a voice.

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U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly, (R-Simi Valley)

I drafted those bills two years ago and introduced them in Congress in ’91 and ’92. When you consider the fact that over half of the entire illegal population in the nation is in Southern California and when you consider there is a tremendous difference between legal and illegal immigration--this is where the debate sometimes gets a little confusing. Elton Gallegly is a strong supporter of legal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants. But those people must petition and be able to show they can take care of themselves in terms of a job or a profession and they also have to pass a very strict health physical to make sure they don’t have communicable diseases. Illegal immigration is a different situation altogether. Two-thirds of all births in the county hospitals in Los Angeles last year were to mothers who had no right to be in this country. Over 860,000 students in the California public school system are either illegal aliens or children of illegal aliens. In health care, we paid out $187 million in direct care to illegal aliens four years ago. Today, that figure is $1 billion.

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Carolyn Leavens, Acting partner, Leavens Ranches

These actions are an imperative if we are going to get out of the financial difficulty that we’re dealing with at the state level. I can give specific instances from people known to me in San Diego where abuses of the medical system by people coming over--waiting until just before delivery to come over and deliver their baby here--are flagrant and done routinely. This has no effect on (Leavens Ranches) workers who’ve come up to make their home in the United States and work here, who are becoming citizens, who are the kind of immigrants we’ve always welcomed. (The North American Free Trade Agreement) will eventually solve this problem as the Mexican economy rises to a level where people won’t have to leave in order to make a decent wage. That’s the long-range goal. It has to be or the ship is going to sink here in California. We have enough of our own who are in financial difficulty because of the recession. This is not an anti-immigration policy. It’s a policy that is simply a fiscal imperative and it means that we expect people from other countries to respect U.S. citizenship.