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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.





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