This opinion is in response to a guest opinion by Natasha Gutierrez published in the Aug. 28 issue.
By LAINE HUBBARD
I commend Ms. Gutierrez for the courage to speak her convictions. With no offense intended, I would like to address one issue at a time.
Hypocrisy is running rampant in this community and the country. Those who complain about the drain on our economy caused by "illegal immigrants" often hire undocumented workers at their businesses and at home. It's hard to determine who has undocumented aliens working in their homes and gardens, but it's easy to find businesses who employ them. They should be sought out and heavily fined.
Consider the semantics. If you break the law, you're a criminal. There's no such thing as being a little bit pregnant, and no such thing as being a little bit of a criminal. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you arrive in this country illegally, you have broken the law. You are officially "illegal." To be even more accurate, one should apply the word "alien" rather than immigrant. The Oxford American Dictionary defines alien as "a person who is not a citizen of this country."
Some people complain that illegal aliens are taking jobs away from citizens. My husband was in the farming industry for most of his career, as was his father and brother. The workers in the fields were Mexicans. They participated in a guest worker program called the Bracero Program. Workers were bussed from Mexico to the fields. They left their families at home to work for as long as the harvests lasted. They were provided transportation, housing and a per diem for meals. They were documented workers and contributed taxes. After the harvest, they returned to Mexico. This was a good and fair program. They made decent wages. Ms. Gutierrez was right when she said it was hard to find anyone else to do this work. Those Mexicans were hard working, honest and deserving.
I agree that anyone who is not willing to work should not blame his or her predicament on others. But shouldn't anyone who works in this country pay taxes?
Ms. Gutierrez mentions that food stamps and cash aid are issued only to U.S. citizens. Who thinks this is wrong? The provision of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting citizenship to newborns needs to be re-examined today. Just as Ms. Gutierrez suggests, it's now creating a society of welfare participants. For example, a 43-year-old undocumented Mexican woman living in California receives about $650 for each of four children per month along with about $500 in federal food stamps and vouchers. These children were born in the U.S. and are therefore U.S. citizens and eligible for welfare. It costs the American taxpayers about $7,626 annually to educate one child. In California that comes to nearly $2.3 billion per year to educate the children of illegal aliens. Schools are not allowed to ask who's legal. Therefore the numbers are probably higher, since illegal aliens are reluctant to expose their citizenship status.
Some further information that readers might find interesting: In California, about 19,000 illegal aliens are in the prison system. The tab for this runs somewhere between $370 million and $500 million per year. California expects to pay $703 million this fiscal year to fund health care for as many as 780,000 illegal aliens. About $486 million goes to emergency services. Low-income illegal aliens receive non-emergency health services in the form of post- and pre-natal care, abortions, breast and cervical cancer treatment and certain types of long-term home care. This has been going on since 1982.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, about 12 million illegal aliens are in the U.S. And the total tab for these individuals would be?
This country is proud to be humanitarian and hospitable to people from other countries. Sometimes it works against us. Can the American taxpayer continue to bear the costs of those who contribute nothing and receive so very much? Does Ms. Gutierrez really believe that people who contribute nothing have the same rights to the privileges that the rest of us earn? If you work hard and pay taxes and I do not, will you give me some of your money? How much? My humble opinion is that Ms. Gutierrez needs to start thinking more like an American citizen and less like a voice for illegal aliens.
Laine Hubbard lives in Sun Valley.
