Is there ANY doubt that Illegals are drawn here?
In yellowStone national park there is a HUGE fine for feeding the animals because they will always seek free food, living etc…
Why would you would you blame this person for taking a handout? and then telling his/her friends from all over to come share in the bounty?
The taxpayers of Massachusetts and the US can NOT continue to support these people.
STOP giving them benefits and they will stop coming…..
the ones that are making a living will stay and the ones sucking us dry will leave….
Have you got a rough estimate of the dollar cost from illegal aliens coming here? If it’s not a large number, then this is not a large problem.
Dave,
you can do your own math…
Take just auntie, how much has it cost the tax payers to support her?
She gets $700 cash/month; housing, clothing, food, healthcare; heat, electricity and probably
gets one of those free cell phones (not free, we pay for that too). Multiply that cost by whatever
number you want, but whatever number you plug in it will be astronomical!
Thank God she has no kids, that would add a tremendous amount, just look at Cambridge the “sanctuary city”, It cost the taxpayers $24k + per student per year.
I got curious about whether I could find an estimate for how many illegal aliens there are in Massachusetts, and found one:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/peo_est_num_of_ill_imm_percap-number-illegal-immigrants-per-capita
In Massachusetts, the estimated illegal population is 1.36% of the total. Not large. Massachusetts is also not especially attractive to illegal immigrants, despite your suggestion that they would come here for the great benefits — the national estimate is 1.7%, so we are below the average. Texas, a state well-known for its terrible social services, has a rate of 4.55% — it seems that proximity to Mexico is more important (Arizona and California are #2 and #1 on the list, at 4.77 and 6.11%)
And, in addition, we’re deporting illegal aliens at a rate 10% higher than in 2008, and 25% higher than 2007. So
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072501790.html
So what do you propose we should do differently, and why? Benefits aren’t that important, else we would be above average, not below. Deportations are up. The overall number is not large. Why should I think this is a burning issue that requires us to do more than we are already doing?
Dave,
Not large?
even though I think that number is a low estimate, instead of showing it as 1.36% to make it appear to be low
put it in real numbers, that’s 90,000 illegal immigrants, some even say it could be as high as 250,000 but even at 90,000
how many are being supported like aunti. There are also cost like the recent Murders in lawrence by an illegal.
what do I think should be done?, NOT ONE of those 90,000+ should be recieving any benefits.
Why would you believe that estimate is low, and what is wrong with using a percentage? Lots of numbers look big, scaled up to the size of a state or a nation, but a percentage lets us know how common something is, and where we stand relative to other states. In this case, for example, it helps illustrate that benefit levels are probably less relevant than proximity to Mexico — we would not necessarily get that with raw numbers, because after all, of course there’s bound to be many illegal immigrants in Texas and California, those are big states. A percentage removes the big-state problem, and lets us see that they really do have relatively more.
What I’ve read, suggests that illegal immigrants are less likely to commit ordinary crimes that the general population. I don’t have a reference for this, I just recall reading it, and the reasoning was simply that if you are trying to avoid getting deported, it’s a good idea not to attract legal attention, OR to get people mad at you.
As far as whether they “should” be receiving the benefits, I think that depends. I am personally a little ambivalent on how we treat illegal immigrants; if we catch them at the border, fine. if we catch them in the first year or two, sure. If, instead, we fail to notice someone’s undocumented status for so long that they start a family here, put down roots, raise children, and graduate them from high school, I think we sort of blew it. There ought to be some sort of a statute of limitations that applies in that case. It is, after all, a matter of paperwork, not a “real” crime, and lots of civil violations have statutes of limitations — so why not this one? It’s not at all part of the Constitution or the early history of this nation; we used to accept all comers.
So to your question of “should”, for me, it depends upon how long they’ve been here. Less than two or three years probably not — but why haven’t they been deported? For the other extreme, suppose someone comes here, and brings their kids with them, and lives for a dozen years, and the kids end up going to school, etc. The kids had no choice in the matter, and they were not adults, and many years have elapsed. I am not at all comfortable denying services to children in that situation.
So I disagree very much with your black-and-white view of this.