"Second, the average California mother is expected to give birth to 2.1 children over her lifetime. This is the so-called "replacement" fertility rate which, if sustained over time, will result in a stable population. The devil is in the details: established residents and immigrants from non-Hispanic groups --Asians, Blacks, Whites, American Indians, and Pacific Islanders--are all reproducing at below replacement rates. Hispanic mothers, by contrast, are on course to have 3.25 children over their reproductive lifetimes."
The Immigration Deficit
Once upon a time political correctness did not prevent Californians from discussing the fiscal burden imposed by illegal aliens. In the early 1990s California faced a sinking economy not unlike today's. Social welfare caseloads exploded, state revenue declined by more than 25 percent, and the state's budget deficit was an unprecedented one-third of total general fund spending.
"Caseloads continued rising even after the recession ended, a trend many officials blamed on illegal immigrants," said Rubenstein. "In 1993 California Gov. Pete Wilson sued the federal government for the costs of state services to illegals--widely estimated at $2 billion ($2.9 billion in 2009 dollars)--arguing that Washington mandated the provision of such services while failing to prevent the illegal influx. Five other magnet states--Arizona, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Texas--joined the suit.
"The issue propelled the drafting of Proposition 187, a state initiative denying certain services to illegal aliens. A firestorm ensued. Besides racism and anti-Latino bias, immigrant groups charged the Wilson administration with grossly exaggerating the net cost of illegal aliens on the state's budget."
The 1994 study found that the 1.7 million illegal aliens then residing in California and their U.S.-born children:
-- Received $4.3 billion in state services
-- Paid $739 million in state taxes
-- Received about $3.6 billion more than they paid in taxes.
"K-12 education is the largest state expenditure, accounting for 40 percent of the budget," Rubenstein said. "Enrollments have increased dramatically since 1994, swelled primarily by Hispanic immigrants and their U.S.-born children. Consider this: between 1994 and 2005 California K-12 enrollment grew by 1,054,806; Hispanic student enrollment rose by 1,009,489, accounting for 96 percent of the total increase. White enrollment declined by 246,220 students over the same period." (See article.)
California Is Our Canary
"Unfortunately, the same social pathologies that attend the foreign-born in California travel to other U.S. destinations," said Rubenstein. "In every instance immigrants are, on average, poorer than natives, more dependent on public largesse, more likely to require remedial education, less likely to finish high school, and more likely to evade taxation and to be incarcerated. Throughout the nation native-born citizens are digging ever deeper into their pockets to subsidize public services for immigrants."
Interesting to see what happens with the projected 70 million new immigrants to be added within 26 years at current immigration rates!
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