Illegal immigrants $18 bln boost to Texas: report

[deadparrot]

DALLAS (Reuters) - The Texan economy would have been almost $18 billion poorer in the last fiscal year without illegal immigrants who added to state coffers but were a drain on local government, says a report by the state comptroller.

The report -- billed as the first detailed look by a state at the impact of undocumented immigrants on its budget -- is likely to stir further debate on the emotional issue of illegal immigration in the United States.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the United States had 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in 2005. Of these it said Texas accounted for between 1.4 million and 1.6 million.

Many Americans say illegal aliens -- mostly from Mexico -- take jobs from locals, depress wages and commit crimes. But many businesses say they fill a much needed gap in the labor market.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061208/us_nm/texas_illegalimmigrants_economy_dc

[Pawel K]

1. You know this will be featured on Lou Dobbs tonight

:sarcasm:

yeah, right.

[Catherine Vincent]

2. Lou Dobbs, spokesman for the MIDDLE CLASS

:)

[pooja]

3. What do people not understand about illegal. And what don't people

understand about the abuse of power and stagnant wage has on America?

[w4rma]

4. No kidding. Some people seem to be like: Go commit crimes! It's fine, you're "helping" the economy.

Good grief.

Thankfully, these people are a very small minority of Democrats and U.S. citizens.

[Pawel K]

6. That's not the point. What you are saying is because weed is illegal

means we should not allow people to smoke weed, even if they need it for medical reasons.

I think immigration is healthy for this country, discriminating how you will allow people to enter this country based on where they come from is wrong, no matter what the law says. Why should people from the UK or Canda be able to enter this country virtually freely while people from Mexico or India can't.

[pooja]

7. where are you at in your life? Do you communicate on a daily basis

with someone from Mexico here working in the US? I do. They don't care to be here. If they could make a living in their country, they would be there. People immigrate because something is lacking in their own country. Since free trade happened, Mexico has been getting screwed. Its time to start humanely dealing with all peoples of the world and stop taking so damn much for ourselves.

[MGKrebs]

8. Hopefully those are rhetorical questions.

I suspect you know the answers, but I'm going to give mine anyway, just for opportunity to develop the rhetoric.

As far as the illegality, just like pretty much every other law breaker, they don't think they will get caught. And of course, they are mostly right. And not getting caught is almost the same as not being illegal. And they have plenty of examples in the national leadership to sort of sanction their lawlessness. I mean, if there are people who will try to con old ladies out of a $500 deposit for an imaginary roofing repair, you know there are thousands who will take a small risk to make a fair amount of extra profit. Besides, their competitors are doing it. I would also venture to guess that there are people on this forum who know someone who uses undocumented workers. Are we going to suggest that they rat out their friends or neighbors for not having a far-reaching enough vision?

Not only that, the real question isn't even the illegality. It's what to do about it. If, for example, all police departments started to strictly enforce the speed limit laws tomorrow... well, they just couldn't. There aren't enough cops, judges, jails, ticket books, or court clerks. The existing problem is too big to be dealt with in an absolutist manner. ( I see below that you suggest a humane response, so we're probably on the same page). It doesn't matter how much we want to, we simply can't suddenly round up 12,000,000 people and handle them in some way. It will take planning (not to mention funding), and that is what legislation is. So there are actually two problems: What to do with what we have now, and what we are going to do going forward.

Not sure what you mean by "abuse of power", but as far as "stagnant wage"... I remember riding by a Wal-Mart last December, and the traffic going into the parking lot was backed up so much that it was blocking the road. I was screaming in my car "Don't you people realize that you are killing your very own jobs???" It didn't work. By the time the Wal-Mart opens, it's too late. All the little local shops probably folded as soon as the groundbreaking ceremony occurred.

[anotherdrew]

5. let's say TX had 1.8 mil imigrants, each imigrant brought $10,000? back to the US

where did they get that US currency from in the first place?

[xchrom]

9. oh. my.

this will be good....

:popcorn:

[PsN2Wind]

10. It here has been that great a benefit to the Texas economy

I think that Arizona would be willing to send them another half million or so to boost it further.