NEW YORK CITY - MORE WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS THAN MEXICO'S SECOND LARGEST CITY OF LOS ANGELES?

Free of Charge

For Bill de Blasio and other progressives, newcomers to the U.S. have no obligations.

Seth Barron

Autumn 2019

Politics and law

New York

Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced that it would expand the list of government benefits it considers when defining a person as a “public charge.” Under the new terms, an immigrant receiving, say, food stamps, emergency cash assistance, or living in public housing may see those benefits count against him when he seeks to upgrade or extend his visa status or apply for citizenship.

It was long believed that immigrants to the United States should not impose social burdens and should thus secure local sponsors who could guarantee their expenses until they got settled. The Immigration Act of 1891, for example, excluded from entry “insane persons, paupers or persons likely to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease,” and other undesirable categories, including felons and polygamists. 

Progressive localities have responded furiously to Trump’s directive. New York City and State have joined a lawsuit to prevent the expansion of public-charge criteria, alleging that it reflects animus against nonwhite immigrants. “The ultimate city of immigrants will never stop fighting President Trump’s xenophobic policies,” declared New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. New York attorney general Letitia James called the rule change “a clear violation of our laws and our values” that would make “more children go hungry,” though aid to children was excluded from consideration in the new rule.

A Federal judge in Manhattan issued a nationwide injunction earlier this month, blocking the new rules from going into effect. Judge George B. Daniels said the Trump administration was perverting the intent of the law, and that the rule “is repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility.” The judge explains that “public charge,” as it was defined in the 1880s, meant long-term dependence on government aid; not receipt of food stamps for a year or two. But America in the nineteenth century offered little in the way of public assistance; it was not considered the government’s job to house, educate, feed, and tend to the illnesses of the general population. Today, local, state, and federal agencies spend trillions of dollars on social services, and it is much easier now to be on the dole than it was then.

It was only recently that New York asked immigrants’ sponsors to reimburse the city for services that the sponsored person had used. In 2012, when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, the Human Resources Administration notified sponsors of immigrant single adults who had received cash assistance from the city that they would be expected to pay back the money.

Many of them did, without complaint. According to Bloomberg’s HRA commissioner, Robert Doar, the agency, working with federal immigration authorities, contacted 580 individuals and informed them that they were on the hook for benefits that their “sponsees” had collected from the city. Of this group, 250 people paid $996,000 to the city to cover those costs. The sponsor recovery program, says Doar, took care to exempt poor sponsors or hardship cases.

On taking office in 2014, however, de Blasio canceled the collection efforts, which he had opposed in his prior position as public advocate, when he had demanded that HRA “stop punishing sponsors when immigrants seek assistance from the city.” As mayor, de Blasio went a step further: he refunded all the money to the 250 sponsors. De Blasio’s view of immigration is that sponsorship is a mere formality; taking it seriously, and expecting financial commitment and responsibility, constitutes “punishment.” As the mayor sees it, every immigrant makes the city stronger, even if he is living on the dole.

In his five years as mayor, de Blasio has blocked municipal cooperation with federal immigration authorities, issued city identification cards to residents ineligible for government IDs, expanded health-care services to illegal immigrants, and assigned taxpayer-funded immigration attorneys to people facing deportation, including serious criminals. The key to understanding his disregard for the rule of law, whether state or federal, is to understand his worldview, which does not recognize the concept of “public charge”—perhaps because, in the progressive vision, everyone should be dependent on government, anyway.

OTHER FACTS ON MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST CITY OF LOS ANGELES:

 

93% OF THE MURDERS ARE BY MEXICANS.

 

THE TAX-FREE UNDERGROUND ECONOMY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY IS ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $2 BILLION YEARLY.

 

Los Angeles County Pays Over a Billion in Welfare to Illegal Aliens Over Two Years

 

BY MASOOMA HAQ

In 2015 and 2016, Los Angeles County paid nearly $1.3 billion in welfare funds to illegal aliens and their families. That figure amounts to 25 percent of the total spent on the county’s entire needy population, according to Fox News.

The state of California is home to more illegal aliens than any other state in the country. Approximately one in five illegal aliens lives in California, Pew reported.

Approximately a quarter of California’s 4 million illegal immigrants reside in Los Angeles County. The county allows illegal immigrant parents with children born in the United States to seek welfare and food stamp benefits.

The welfare benefits data acquired by Fox News comes from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services and shows welfare and food stamp costs for the county’s entire population were $3.1 billion in 2015, $2.9 billion in 2016.

The data also shows that during the first five months of 2017, more than 60,000 families received a total of $181 million.

Over 58,000 families received a total of $602 million in benefits in 2015 and more than 64,000 families received a total of $675 million in 2016.

Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow who studies poverty and illegal immigration, told Fox the costs represent “the tip of the iceberg.”

“They get $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend,” Rector said. It can cost the government a total of $24,000 per year per family to pay for things like education, police, fire, medical, and subsidized housing.

In February of 2019, the Los Angeles city council signed a resolution making it a sanctuary city. The resolution did not provide any new legal protections to their immigrants, but instead solidified existing policies.

In October 2017, former California governor Jerry Brown signed SB 54 into law. This bill made California, in Brown’s own words, a “sanctuary state.” The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the State of California over the law. A federal judge dismissed that suit in July. SB 54 took effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

According to Center for Immigration Studies, “The new law does many things: It forbids all localities from cooperating with ICE detainer notices, it bars any law enforcement officer from participating in the popular 287(g) program, and it prevents state and local police from inquiring about individuals’ immigration status.”

Some counties in California have protested its implementation and joined the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state.

California’s campaign to provide public services to illegal immigrants did not end with the exit of Jerry Brown. His successor, Gavin Newsom, is just as focused as Brown in funding programs for illegal residents at the expense of California taxpayers.

California’s budget earmarks millions of dollars annually to the One California program, which provides free legal assistance to all aliens, including those facing deportation, and makes California’s public universities easier for illegal-alien students to attend.

According to the Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers 2017 report, for the estimated 12.5 million illegal immigrants living in the country, the resulting cost is a $116 billion burden on the national economy and taxpayers each year, after deducting the $19 billion in taxes paid by some of those illegal immigrants.

BLOG: MOST FIGURES PUT THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS IN THE U.S. AT ABOUT 40 MILLION. WHEN THESE PEOPLE ARE HANDED AMNESTY, THEY ARE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO BRING UP THE REST OF THEIR FAMILY EFFECTIVELY LEAVING MEXICO DESERTED.

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that more than 22 million non-citizens now live in the United States.