The Fresno Bee recently ran an opinion piece titled "Should California Provide Health Care to Undocumented?" In the article, Santa Cruz County Supervisor Zach Friend and California Endowment President and CEO Robert Ross both gave some fake news on the issue of illegal immigration.
First, Zach Friend said: "While undocumented immigrants contribute approximately $3 billion in state and local taxes each year they are mostly on the periphery of our health care system."
Then, Robert Ross said: "Studies show that undocumented residents contribute far more to the California economy than any perceived taxpayer burden."
Talk about some fake news! Both Zach Friend and Robert Ross are our "Dial-A-Dems" of the day this afternoon. Here is their contact info, and when you talk with them, list out some of the REAL facts on illegal immigration costs in California. Details below:
Zach Friend (Santa Cruz County Supervisor, District 2)
Office Phone: 831-454-2200
Click here for a link to his email and contact page
Robert Ross (President and CEO of the California Endowment)
LA Headquarters: 1-800-449-4149
Fresno Office: 559-443-5300
Write this below to the Dial-A-Dems in your email or letter to them, and explain to them the TRUE cost of illegal immigration in California!
Californians bear an enormous fiscal burden as a result of an illegal alien population estimated at almost 3 million residents. The annual expenditure of state and local tax dollars on services for that population is $25.3 billion. That total amounts to a yearly burden of about $2,370 for a household headed by a U.S. citizen.
Nearly half of those expenditures ($12.3 billion) result from the costs of K-12 education for the children of illegal aliens — both those illegally in the country and those born in the United States. Another major outlay ($2.1 billion) results from the need to provide supplemental English language instruction to Limited English Proficient students, many of whom are children of illegal aliens. Together, these educational costs are 57.1 percent of total expenditures.
Other fiscal outlays result from the costs of medical care ($4.0 billion), public assistance services ($800 million), administration of justice functions ($4.4 billion), and general governmental services ($1.6 billion).
Because some tax revenue is collected from the illegal alien population, we include an estimate of this revenue from sales, income, property and "sin" taxes. Yet, it should be kept in mind that the $3.5 billion in tax collections is not truly an offset to the fiscal costs, because similar, and likely greater, tax revenue would be collected if the same jobs were filled by legal workers.