Los Angeles Times

L.A. County welfare to children of illegal immigrants grows

Payments to U.S.-born children rose to $52 million in July, prompting calls for policy changes

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
September 5, 2010

Welfare payments to children of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County increased in July to $52 million, prompting renewed calls from one county supervisor to rein in public benefits to such families.

The payments, made to illegal immigrants for their U.S. citizen children, included $30 million in food stamps and $22 million from the CalWorks welfare program, according to county figures released Friday by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

The new figure represents an increase of $3.7 million from July 2009 and makes up 23% of all county welfare and food stamp assistance, according to county records.

Last year, welfare and food stamp issuances totaled nearly $570 million, and the amount is projected to exceed $600 million this year. In addition, county taxpayers spend $550 million in public safety — mostly for jail costs — and nearly $500 million for healthcare for illegal immigrants, Antonovich said.

"The supervisor is very concerned," said Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell. "He believes we have an economic catastrophe on our hands."

Shirley Christensen of the county Department of Public Social Services said the number of households with illegal immigrant parents and U.S. citizen children receiving welfare increased by 7% from January to June of this year.

"With the economy the way it is, a lot of people have had to avail themselves of programs they may not have needed before," Christensen said. "Everyone is taking a hit, including undocumented immigrants."

Amid continued economic gloom, debate has intensified over the public cost of providing benefits to illegal immigrants and their U.S. citizen children. In recent months, calls have grown for a constitutional amendment that would effectively deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, whose numbers increased from 2.7 million in 2003 to 4 million in 2008, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Currently, U.S. citizenship is automatically granted to children born on U.S. soil. Last month, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced that he might introduce a constitutional amendment to deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants. Antonovich and several legal scholars, however, argue that a federal statute would be sufficient to change the law.

But even some immigration hawks are wary of such a move. Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research organization that supports immigration restrictions, said ending birthright citizenship would harm children for their parents' misdeeds, require new federal registration systems and create other problems. The solution, he said, is to continue driving down illegal immigration with tough enforcement.

I for one look forward to seeing the payments continue. The sooner we bankrupt California, the better.

You're not worried about a CA bailout?

This country needs an enema.

Obama signed a $26 billion bailout for the states in August, claiming that "it is for the teachers".  Link.  This will continue as long as he thinks that he is buying votes.

Like it or not, this is not a local problem and requires changes to Federal laws and policies to fix.

Jackass. You can't continue something that hasn't started yet.

No. Getting a Republican Congress to vote for a California bailout is as plausible as GW letting Saddam fuck Laura.

All Zero is buying (with our $$$) is votes he will get anyway. It's more like paying them to go vote. Turnout will be everything for the Dems. As for CA itself as long as they wait till after November to go belly-up it can't happen fast enough to suit me. No bailout for Bonzo then.  After that we will see how all those CA legal weapons work out.

0 needs to buy kali's votes

How do you nullify the supreme court opinion that started the anchor baby problem? As I understand it, some dumbshit judge said "we don't care if they are here illegally" . We don't need a constitutional amendment, just that one thing deleted. Letting ANYONE sat this point add something to the constitution would be a major mistake. We need removal of bad laws, not exemptions to them.

Say it isn't so!

Wasn't Kali the first state to call for a boycott of Arizona after they passed SB 1070?

Love the irony

And I know just where they can shove it.

How about we don't let the left set the tone of the debate. They are illegal aliens , not illegal immigrants, undocumented workers, etc.





Don't let these idiotic terms creep into usage, because it doesn't take long for them to become part and parcel of our vocabulary, like 'African American'.
 

Racist. They do nothing but good for our country.