Cost of illegals: $420 million in government aid

LOS ANGELES - Through their citizen children, illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County collect $420 million annually in welfare and food stamps, according to a report requested by 5th District County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services told the supervisor that payments to illegal immigrants' children amount to approximately 24% of the county's combined CalWORKS and food stamps budget, officials said.

"What we found was kind of astonishing," said Tony Bell, an Antonovich aide.

Each month, the county doles out $77 million in CalWORKS assistance, $20 million of which goes to the citizen dependent children of illegal immigrants, said Helen Berberian, another Antonovich aide. CalWORKS is the state's welfare-to-work program.

Along with CalWORKS assistance, the county approves $70 million every month in food stamps, with $15 million going to legal children of illegal immigrants, Berberian said.

The welfare payments go to nearly 100,000 children of 60,000 illegal immigrants, Antonovich's staff said. His staff estimated that Los Angeles County has almost 12% of the United States' illegal immigrant population.

The welfare payments are just a portion of the impact from illegal immigrants and their children, Antonovich said.

"Illegal immigration continues to have a devastating impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers," Antonovich said in a statement. "When the nearly one-half billion dollars spent on health care is added to the costs of public safety and health care, this brings the total cost to nearly $1 billion a year. This does not include the skyrocketing cost of education."

According to Antonovich's office, illegal immigrants annually cost the county $360 million in health care and $220 million in incarceration costs.

Antonovich has spoken to Congress several times about ways to mitigate the country's illegal immigration problem, including the repeal of at least part of the 14th Amendment.

"We would like to see the repeal of the amendment giving citizenship to children born in the U.S.," Bell said. "The purpose was to ensure that freed slaves were granted citizenship to rectify the evils of slavery, not to provide illegal immigrants with a legal way into our country through childbirth."

State Sen. George Runner said such a move "is a very worthy issue to be addressed."

"Just because you are born here, does it automatically give you the right to citizenship?" Runner said. "I think it's worth of having the discussion."

Antonovich also has proposed a bonded guest worker program.

"Bonded guest workers would have a bond to cover costs incurred while working in the United States," Bell said.

Those bonds would cover health care and other major expenses, Bell said, adding that many illegal immigrants come to California because they can get free medical care.

Bell said Antonovich will continue to work with state and federal leaders. Runner said that might be all the supervisor can do, as he is outnumbered by his fellow supervisors.

"With health insurance, I know L.A. County does go ahead and pay beyond what the state would pay," Runner said. "I know Mike opposes that, but the problem is, he's like me in that he has a majority on his board that is willing to pay out those benefits."

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Thursday, April 5, 2007.
By JAMES RUFUS KOREN
Valley Press Staff Writer
jkoren@avpress.com