[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM: IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION ON STATES AND
LOCALITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,
CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY,
AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 17, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-28
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan, Chairman
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California LAMAR SMITH, Texas
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
JERROLD NADLER, New York Wisconsin
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts RIC KELLER, Florida
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida DARRELL ISSA, California
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California MIKE PENCE, Indiana
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia STEVE KING, Iowa
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois TOM FEENEY, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Perry Apelbaum, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Joseph Gibson, Minority Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law
ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois STEVE KING, Iowa
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California ELTON GALLEGLY, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
MAXINE WATERS, California DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Chief Counsel
George Fishman, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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MAY 17, 2007
OPENING STATEMENT
Page
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 1
The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress
from the State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary...................................................... 3
WITNESSES
The Honorable Dennis P. Zine, Councilman, City of Los Angeles,
National League of Cities
Oral Testimony................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 8
The Honorable John Andrews, former President of the Colorado
State Senate
Oral Testimony................................................. 13
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
The Honorable Sharon Tomiko Santos, Washington State House of
Representatives, National Conference of State Legislatures
Oral Testimony................................................. 22
Prepared Statement............................................. 24
Mr. Stephen Appold, Ph.D., Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Oral Testimony................................................. 60
Prepared Statement............................................. 62
Ms. Audrey Singer, Ph.D., Immigration Fellow, Metropolitan Policy
Program, The Brookings Institution
Oral Testimony................................................. 75
Prepared Statement............................................. 77
Ms. Anne Morrison Piehl, Ph.D., Department of Economics & Program
in Criminal Justice, Rutgers, The State University of New
Jersey
Oral Testimony................................................. 81
Prepared Statement............................................. 84
Ms. Deborah A. Santiago, Ph.D., Vice President for Policy and
Research, Excelencia in Education
Oral Testimony................................................. 91
Prepared Statement............................................. 94
Mr. Robert Rector, Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage
Foundation
Oral Testimony................................................. 99
Prepared Statement............................................. 101
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative
in Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border
Security, and International Law................................ 2
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a
Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary........................... 3
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve King, a Representative
in Congress from the State of Iowa, and Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border
Security, and International Law................................ 125
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border
Security, and International Law................................ 126
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Janet Napolitano, Governor of
the State of Arizona, on ``Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
Impact of Immigration on States and Localities,'' submitted by
the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law.............................................. 128
``The Fiscal Impact of Immigration Reform: The Real Story,'' by
Daniel Griswold, Director, Center for Trade Policy Studies,
Cato Institute, May 21, 2007................................... 134
Letter from the National Association of Counties and the National
League of Cities............................................... 138
Prepared Statement of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement....... 139
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve DeBenedittis, Mayor,
the Town of Herndon, VA........................................ 141
``Dollars without Sense: Underestimating the Value of Less-
Educated Workers,'' by Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. and Benjamin
Johnson, a policy brief of the Immigration Policy Center....... 144
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM: IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION ON STATES AND
LOCALITIES
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2007
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:06 p.m., in
Room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Zoe
Lofgren (Chairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Lofgren, Gutierrez, Jackson Lee,
Conyers, and King.
Staff present: Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Majority Chief Counsel;
R. Blake Chisam, Majority Counsel; George Fishman, Minority
Counsel; and Benjamin Staub, Professional Staff Member.
Ms. Lofgren. Let me first apologize for being a full hour
late. The Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees,
Border Security, and International Law will come to order.
As I have explained to our witnesses, the full Committee
was in a markup downstairs, and the markup seemed to go on a
little bit longer than we had planned. And then, of course, as
soon as we were through, the House of Representatives called us
over for a vote. So we will proceed as quickly as possible.
This is the 10th hearing we have had on comprehensive
immigration reform. And we have studied--I will put my full
statement in the record, but we have studied a variety of
topics related to comprehensive immigration reform, and today
we are going to turn our attention to the cost of immigration
to the States and localities.
In general, most scholars tend to agree that immigrants, on
the whole, benefit the U.S. economy and American culture, and
the Subcommittee's previous hearings have addressed these
issues in detail. However, despite the overall benefits of
immigration to the Nation, most scholars tend to concur that
illegal immigration can have deliterious effects on States and
localities, and it is those effects that we will address during
this hearing.
We have a quorum to proceed. Ordinarily I would not proceed
with the absence of the Ranking Member, but I have been advised
that at least two of the witnesses have to leave to catch
airplanes, so I am sure that Mr. King would not object to our
allowing those two witnesses in particular to begin with their
testimony.
I see also our Chairman, Mr. Conyers, is here.
We realize that at this point a number of States and
localities have taken legislative action themselves about the
issue of immigration all over the board. And clearly the issue
of immigration is a Federal issue, and the fact that localities
and States are stepping forward I think is another indicator
that it is really time for the Federal Government to step up to
the bat and take action.
The National League of Cities, the Nation's oldest and
largest organization devoted to strengthening and promoting
cities, shares these frustrations, and we will hear from them.
When Mr. King arrives, obviously, he will have his
statement in the record.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in
Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International
Law
I would like to welcome the Immigration Subcommittee Members, our
witnesses, and members of the public to the Subcommittee's eleventh
hearing on comprehensive immigration reform.
We started our series of hearings at Ellis Island where we examined
the need for comprehensive immigration reform to secure our borders, to
address economic and demographic concerns, and we reviewed our nation's
rich immigrant history. We have studied immigration reform from 1986
and 1996 in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the past. We've
considered the problems with and proposed solutions for our current
employment and worksite verification system. In light of recent
proposals by the White House to eliminate family priorities in
immigration and replace them with a completely new and untested point
system, we studied the contributions of family immigrants to America
and various immigration point systems used around the world. And just
yesterday, we had a hearing to explore integration of immigrants and
their children into the United States. There we learned that if
creating new Americans is a goal of our immigration policy, we should
ensure that comprehensive immigration reform reflects that objective.
Purely temporary worker programs with little opportunity for those who
contribute to our economy to become full members of the country that
they've helped to build run contrary to the goal of Americanism and
assimilation, because such programs relegate people to a life in a
permanent underclass.
Today we turn our attention to the costs of immigration to states
and localities. In general, most scholars tend to agree that
immigrants, on the whole, benefit the U.S. economy and American
culture. The Subcommittee's previous hearings have addressed these
issues in detail.
Despite the overall benefits of immigration to the nation, most
scholars tend to concur that illegal immigration can have deleterious
effects on states and localities. It is those effects we will address
during this hearing.
The witnesses today will explain that most scholars agree that
illegal immigrants do create certain fiscal costs to taxpayers. Where
there are studies--and they are varied because of the lack of accurate
data--the costs are actually much smaller than many may assume. Still,
the costs to taxpayers appear to be fairly minimal, costing the average
taxpayer less than $200 per year.
These costs relate to local expenditures on schools, hospitals, and
criminal incarceration, disproportionately accrued by states and
localities. The federal government is a greater beneficiary of the tax
revenues.
Many states and localities are frustrated about this inequality of
benefits between them and the federal government and the lack of
federal action to solve the illegal immigration issue. According to the
National Conference of State Legislatures:
As of April 13, 2007, state legislators in all of the 50 states
had introduced at least 1,169 bills and resolutions related to
immigration or immigrants and refugees. This is more than twice
the total number of introduced bills (570) in 2006.
Up to this point in the 2007 legislative sessions, 18 states
(Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky,
Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New
York, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming)
have enacted at least 57 bills in this policy arena, already
\2/3\ of the total number of laws enacted in 2006. State
legislatures have also adopted at least 19 resolutions and
memorials in their 2007 sessions. Most state legislatures
remain in session, an indication that it is quite likely that
there will be even more activity this year.
The National League of Cities (NLC), the nation's oldest and
largest organization devoted to strengthening and promoting cities,
shares the same frustrations as NCSL. The NLC recognizes that local
governments are caught in the middle of the economic impacts of illegal
immigration. As the federal government controls the flow and regulation
of immigration, the responsibility of integrating immigrants and
providing services such as social services, health care and education,
lies within the local governments. It is the local governments who are
bearing the financial impact of both legal and illegal immigration.
Given these local concerns regarding illegal immigration, the time
is now for Congress to address comprehensive immigration reform.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Conyers, would you like to make an opening
statement? We do have two witnesses who have to run for
airports. Would you like to just enter your opening statement?
Mr. Conyers. Before I put it in the record, I just want to
emphasize that most of us realize that States do not want to
shift the burden of enforcement to them.
And, secondly, this is not just an enforcement problem, the
reform of immigration, that this maybe ninth hearing has to do
with, and that the immigration debate highlights the need for
universal health care.
We know that immigrants are anything but a burden. It has
been documented over and over. But I think that one of the
responsibilities of this important series of hearings by the
Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee is that we
analyze the cost, the benefits, and the opportunities of
working together.
I would like my complete statement to be entered into the
record, and I thank the gentlelady, the Chairwoman.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Conyers follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative
in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary
In this hearing, we will delve a little deeper into the issue of
whether immigration is a net positive for our communities.
There are some things that we know going into this debate.
First, we know that the States do not want us to shift the burden
of enforcement to them. Nor should we. This is a Federal
responsibility, and we must rise to the challenge.
Second, this is not just an enforcement issue. In yesterday's
hearing, we agreed that immigrants should be brought into the American
social fabric through programs such as language and civics classes.
Those programs do not happen on their own. Those programs do not happen
on their own, and civic engagement, education, and opportunity
shouldn't just be for immigrants, but for everyone. We need to support
the States and localities to provide these critical services.
Third, we know that the immigration debate highlights the need for
universal health care. For example, a Health Affairs Journal study
found that undocumented immigrants are not the cause of over-crowded
emergency departments and higher health care costs. Rather, the problem
is that more and more Americans lack health care coverage. We need to
address this and take the burden of our local health systems.
Finally, we know that immigrants are anything but a burden. As the
Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture states on
this point:
``[The infusion of Hispanic immigrants] has helped to stem
decades of population decline in some States, revitalizing many
rural communities with new demographic and economic vigor. Such
population infusions may affect the allocation of State and
Federal program funding to rural areas for education, health,
other social services, and infrastructure projects.''
In fact, these infusions have widely been interpreted as impacting
Congressional redistricting in some states. Former Governor Tom Vilsak
was so struck by this issue and by the need to ensure future stability
that he pursued a strategy of recruiting immigrants to come to Iowa.
Immigration presents us with costs, benefits, and opportunities.
Working together, we can meet the challenges and reap the rewards of
these new Americans.
Ms. Lofgren. Without objection. And thank you so much, Mr.
Conyers, for being here today.
Without objection, the testimony of Governor Janet
Napolitano, the governor of Arizona, will also be submitted for
the record.
[The prepared statement of Governor Napolitano is inserted
in the Appendix.]
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to introduce our witnesses.
Here we have the Honorable Sharon Tomiko Santos, who is a
Representative in the Washington State House of
Representatives. Seattle first elected Representative Santos to
the Washington House in 1998. She now serves as the majority
whip. She is a leader on education, health care, and affordable
housing, and she served as an NGO delegate to the United
Nations' fourth World Conference on Women and is a recipient of
the Martin Luther King, Jr. ``Keeping the Dream Alive Award.''
She earned her bachelor's degree from Evergreen State College
and her master's degree from Northeastern University.
I am also pleased to welcome the Honorable Dennis Zine, a
friend from California, a member of the City Council,
representing Los Angeles's 3rd District. Councilman Zine has
worked for nearly 4 decades in public service, beginning as an
officer in the Los Angeles Police Department 37 years ago. In
addition to his duties as Councilman, Mr. Zine volunteers with
organizations such as Mothers Against Drun,k Driving, the Haven
Hills Home for Battered Women and the Jewish Home for Aging. He
is the treasurer for the Independent Cities Association and
represents Los Angeles on the National League of Cities Public
Safety and Crime Prevention Steering Committee.
I am also pleased to introduce Dr. Stephen Appold, a
scholar at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private
Enterprise at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler
Business School. Prior to his post at UNC, he taught at
Carnegie-Mellon University and the National University of
Singapore. He also taught in the executive education program
for labor unionists in the Ong Teng Cheong Institute of Labor
Studies in Singapore. Dr. Appold received a bachelor's and
master's degree from the State University of New York Stony
Brook and a master's and doctoral degree from the University of
North Carolina.
And, finally, I am pleased to open the minority's witness
on the panel, the Honorable John Andrews, former President of
the Colorado State Senate. Former Senator Andrews now serves as
a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute in Denver. He served
as a State Senator between 1998 and 2005, leaving on a term
limit. Prior to his distinguished tenure in public office, he
chaired the State policy network and directed TCI Cable News.
After graduating from Principia College, former Senator Andrews
was also a U.S. Navy submarine officer.
Each of your written statements will be made a part of the
record in its entirety. We have asked each of you to summarize
your testimony in 5 minutes, and that little machine in the
front will be your guide. When the yellow light goes on, it
means you have a minute left.
I am going to ask first Mr. Zine to speak. He has to leave
at 4:30 to catch a plane. And then I think Mr. Andrews will be
following shortly, and then we will go to the other witnesses
who do not have as urgent situations.
Mr. Zine?
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DENNIS P. ZINE, COUNCILMAN, CITY OF
LOS ANGELES, NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES
Mr. Zine. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair
and Members of the Subcommittee.
I am Dennis P. Zine, council member from the City of Los
Angeles, here today on behalf of the National League of Cities
as a member of the board of directors for the National League
of Cities and the Chairperson of the Immigration Task Force for
the National League of Cities.
The Task Force was established 2 years ago to deal with the
12-plus million undocumented people in the country.
I have been with the L.A. City Council for 6 years. Before
that, I was with the Los Angeles Police Department as an
officer and a supervisor for over 30 years. I am also the son
of Lebanese immigrants, so I am well aware of the impact of
immigration from the perspective of law enforcement and also a
vulnerable population, and as someone responsible for the
management of a major city, the City of Los Angeles.
The National League of Cities is pleased to have this
opportunity to speak to you this afternoon to present our views
on the impact of immigration on America's cities and towns and
the need for comprehensive Federal immigration reform
legislation. The absence of a functional Federal system
regulating an orderly flow of immigration has resulted in
financial, cultural, and political strains in communities
across America.
Local governments are caught in the middle of this debate
with no control over the flow and regulation of immigration but
with the responsibilities of integrating immigrants into our
communities and providing the services necessary for stable
neighborhoods.
Recent headlines highlighting new restrictive laws are the
depressing example of the stress local governments face in
dealing with the fast-growing immigration populations and
finding the best way to balance the needs of newcomers with our
established residents.
As immigrants, both legal and illegal, flood our
communities, more than 90 cities and counties have proposed,
passed or rejected laws prohibiting landlords from leasing to
undocumented immigrants, penalizing businesses that employ
undocumented workers or training local police to enforce
Federal immigration laws. You may have heard of the
confrontation between the Los Angeles Police Department and the
pro-immigration groups on May 1 in Los Angeles. It was not a
pretty picture and the LAPD does not even enforce illegal entry
laws.
While immigrants have strengthened our country and our
communities in numerous ways, many communities are straining to
find the right approach in such an unsettled environment over
immigration and Federal immigration policy.
In addition to cultural impacts on the community, the
responsibility for providing social services, education and
health care is falling on State and local governments, which
are feeling the financial impact of both legal and illegal
immigrants in cities and towns. California has long been a
gateway for new immigrants. However, my colleagues in new
destination States now face many of the same challenges that we
have encountered for many, many years.
Despite some cities receiving the headlines for their
restrictive policies, many local governments across the Nation
are working hard to integrate immigrants without regard to
their immigration status into their communities. Discussions
with local officials across the Nation point to positive
impacts on communities by reversing population declines,
stabilizing or increasing school enrollments, local industrial
employers relying heavily on immigrant populations to take jobs
that would otherwise go unfilled.
Undocumented immigrants also contribute significantly to
spending power of local economies. Sales tax is charged to all
who purchase goods and products in our stores. In general, most
of these residents are hardworking people trying to provide for
their families and build a brighter future for their children.
Many communities have established welcome centers, held
diversity events, and undertaken other activities to make the
new residents feel that they are a valued part of the
community.
Local law enforcement personnel find it difficult if not
impossible to build trust among undocumented populations and
many immigrants are reluctant to report crimes or cooperate in
criminal investigations with the police for fear that their
undocumented status will be uncovered and they may face
prosecution and deportation. A lack of valid documentation also
leaves immigrants vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous
individuals and makes it easer for the small minority of
immigrants involved in criminal activity to hide and even
exploit others with impunity.
Local government's primary concern is to protect the safety
of all residents by building trust among all populations with
our cities, regardless of immigrant status. Families are forced
to live underground, unable to get drivers' licenses or car
insurance in most States, unlikely to obtain health insurance,
and afraid to report crimes to the police.
Because immigrants, whether legal or illegal, generally
live or work in our cities and towns, new legislation to
significantly improve the Federal immigration system is a
critical issue for the National League of Cities. National
League of Cities asks you to act quickly to enact comprehensive
reform to the current immigration laws to bring some sense and
reasonableness to America's immigration policy.
We are talking about comprehensive immigration reform
legislation which should include the following: enforcement of
existing laws, including strong worksite enforcement and
accurate worker verification; increased staff and resources at
the borders; increased enforcement against those individuals
who initially enter the country illegally with student, tourist
or business visas but remain in this country after their visas
expire; effective enforcement of the Federal law that makes it
illegal to knowingly hire and employ undocumented immigrants
and to penalize employers significantly who continue to violate
the law; better verification system, including a universal,
reliable, effective, secure, nondiscriminatory identification
verification system using the top technology; better avenues
for legal immigration, including legal means of immigration of
foreign nationals who want to work here temporarily, as well as
those who desire to become legal, permanent residents, gain
citizenship; and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented
immigrants living in the United States through payment of
appropriate fees, back taxes, background checks, absence of
criminal gang activity, work history, and the ability to meet
English and civic requirements; funding to help alleviate the
impact on communities, including public safety, language,
health education.
Border security along with employee verification and other
reasonable measures will bring about safety and security for
the American people and at the same time assist those desiring
to achieve the American dream which we all enjoy.
And in conclusion, this isn't a partisan issue, it is
across all political lines and impacts hundreds of communities
across America. The solution rests in your hands. We implore
you to act and finally resolve this.
In conclusion, NLC looks forward to working with you, and I
thank you for your time. Five minutes and seventeen seconds.
[Laughter.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dennis P. Zine
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Councilman.
Mr. Conyers. Madam Chairman, is the gentleman going to
leave before the witnesses have concluded their presentations?
Mr. Zine. Yes.
Ms. Lofgren. I think he is going to have to. And also Mr.
Andrews.
Mr. Zine. Yes, Mr. Conyers.
Mr. Conyers. Could I ask him to include subsequently in
writing the incredible Los Angeles police riot that you
referenced in your statement.
And I would like to get a comment from a veteran law
enforcement person as well as a distinguished Councilman: what
is the effect of all of these raids and roundups on places in
which likely immigrants may be?
We have got a huge law enforcement problem going on as we
speak, and you would be appropriate to help us sort that out.
Mr. Zine. We have that, and that is one of the problems
with no comprehensive reform. We have jurisdictions throughout
the country that have decided to do it on their own. And as the
Chair said, you have individual localities establishing their
own rules and regulations in the absence of a Federal
regulation.
So we have, for example, in some counties in California,
they do immigration enforcement. In Los Angeles, we don't. But
you can't have this, ``I crossed this community into another
community and we are going to be incarcerated because we don't
have proper status in the country.''
Mr. Conyers. So what about the Los Angeles police rioting
on immigrants?
Mr. Zine. Well, when that happened--see, we don't have a
policy. We have what is called ``special number 40.'' We don't
enforce the status of an individual in the country. We are
banned from that through an order that has been in place in Los
Angeles City for many years.
But what happened in that particular situation is you had a
demonstration, a May Day demonstration. There was a dispersal
order after police were assaulted with some rocks and bottles,
after a motorcycle supervisor was knocked off his motorcycle.
So there was the command to disperse the crowd. And I will be
the first to admit that the way they dispersed that crowed was
not appropriate.
Mr. Conyers. It wasn't premeditated?
Mr. Zine. No, no, no. There was a scheduled demonstration,
a May Day demonstration, which they annually have. This
demonstration----
Mr. Conyers. No. I mean the action of the police, was that
premeditated?
Mr. Zine. Well, I would hope not.
Mr. Conyers. Well----
Mr. Zine. And we are doing an investigation that is due the
end of this month to bring all the facts forward. We know that
that is not the typical procedure by any law enforcement
agency, when you have members of the media, women and children,
that get involved in this situation with the dispersal of a
crowd, but----
Mr. Conyers. Finally--Madam Chair, you have been very
generous--do you know the record of the Los Angeles Police in
terms of illegal activity and violence visited upon their
citizenry? This isn't an isolated case.
Mr. Zine. Well, the Los Angeles Police Department is under
a Federal consent decree because of situations that have taken
place in the past, and we hope with this administration and
Antonio Villaraigosa as our mayor, this city council, which I
am a proud member of, Bernard Parks, former chief of police, is
a council member, we are rectifying the situation that has
been--shall we say some of the sad situations that have taken
place in Los Angeles City in the past.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
I wonder if we could ask Mr. Andrews to deliver his
testimony and then we might have just a few minutes left to
direct questions to these two members, and then they will have
to run.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JOHN ANDREWS, FORMER PRESIDENT OF
THE COLORADO STATE SENATE
Mr. Andrews. Madam Chairman, thanks for your courtesy in
taking me out of order.
Madam Chair, Mr. Conyers, Members of the Committee, it is
an honor to speak with you this afternoon.
I am John Andrews. I was President of the Colorado Senate,
2003 to 2005. Our western State is not on the frontline of
America's southern border, but we are a second-line State. We
have been identified as a gathering and transmission point for
a massive mission point for a massive flow of people that have
entered this country illegally.
I bring you from Colorado an appeal to build a fence and
secure the border first and foremost. I appeal to you not to
reward lawbreakers with green cards and citizenship.
People in Colorado are self-reliant in their way of life,
optimistic in their outlook, welcoming to newcomers from
anywhere in the world. We are not complainers, and we are not
alarmists. But we know a problem when we see one, and we expect
a bargain to be kept.
Right now millions of Coloradans see the invasion of
illegal aliens as an urgent problem for our State. We attribute
that problem to the Federal Government's failure to keep its
bargain with Americans everywhere for secure borders and the
rule of law. Amnesty for illegal aliens was supposed to fix
this problem 20 years ago. It did not.
Estimates today put the illegal alien population of
Colorado at somewhere between 250,000 to 750,000 people, up to
15 percent of the entire population. Our schools, our health
care system, and our criminal justice system are groaning under
this burden. Our common culture and common language are
fraying. We feel Washington has let us down. It seems Congress
and the White House just don't care.
Most of those individuals who broke the law to come here or
stay here are probably good people with good motives. But we
can't be sure. Some may be enemy sleepers with deadly intent.
Nor can we be sure how many of them are actually here, or what
countries they came from.
But I can assure you, Madam Chairman, their country of
origin does not matter to Coloradans. What matters is their
disruptive impact on our State, disrupting self-government,
disrupting safe neighborhoods, disrupting affordable public
services.
Feeling betrayed by Federal inaction, Coloradans last year
started a petition to protect affordable public services by
restricting them to legal residents only, except in emergencies
or by Federal mandate. That petition was called Defend Colorado
Now. I was one of four co-chairmen, Democrats and Republicans,
Anglos and Hispanics, helping lead that campaign.
A study done for our group, based on documented statistics
in the public record, found that illegal aliens were costing
Colorado taxpayers over $1 billion a year through the extra
burden on services and that they were reducing family paychecks
by another $2 billion a year through lower wages. The entire
study is available online and I have provided that citation for
the Committee's reference.
In 2005, Colorado voters had approved a ballot issue to
raise taxes by about $1 billion a year, which wouldn't have
been necessary if the Federal Government had kept its bargain
for secure borders. Then in 2006, with that petition, we set
out to do what we could about the problem ourselves.
You are absolutely right, Madam Chairman. It can't be
solved State by State.
Our petition happened to fall short, but it did push the
legislature into passing some of the toughest ID requirements
and workplace sanctions of any State.
The legislature also took an extraordinary step. It asked
voters to approve a lawsuit against the Attorney General of the
United States, as if Mr. Gonzales didn't have enough on his
hands, which demands enforcement of Federal immigration laws in
order to give us some budgetary relief in the areas of health
care, law enforcement, criminal defense and incarceration,
education. It passed by a landslide and the Colorado lawsuit is
now in Federal court.
We aren't holding our breath, but it shows the public
impatience on this issue.
I grew up in a Colorado mountain town called Buena Vista.
This week there was a national news report alleging that
radical Islamists have a paramilitary training camp at Buena
Vista. I wonder if some of them are illegal aliens, similar to
the Fort Dix cell that was recently broken up. That is the risk
we take with an unsecured border in the middle of a global war.
As the father of a Denver police officer, I have to take
such threats seriously. One of my son's fellow officers, Donald
Young, was brutally murdered by an illegal alien 2 years ago
this month. My son has a T-shirt that says ``Never Forget.''
Coloradans won't forget, but we can't solve this problem
without your help here in Congress.
The help we need is for you to build the fence and secure
the border, period. No amnesty. No so-called comprehensive
solution for cheap votes and cheap labor. Just stop the
invasion.
Thank you for the opportunity to present our State's
concerns.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Andrews follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Andrews
I'm John Andrews, former President of the Colorado Senate, now a
senior fellow with the Claremont Institute. People in my state are
self-reliant in their way of life, optimistic in their outlook, and
welcoming to newcomers from anywhere in the world. We are not
complainers, and we are not alarmists.
But we know a problem when we see one, and we expect a bargain to
be kept. Right now millions of Coloradans see the invasion of illegal
aliens as an urgent problem for our state, and we attribute that
problem to the federal government's failure to keep its bargain with
Americans everywhere for secure borders and the rule of law.
Amnesty for illegal aliens was supposed to fix this problem 20
years ago. It did not. Estimates today put the illegal alien population
of Colorado at somewhere between 250,000 to 750,000 people--as much as
15 percent of the entire population.
Our schools, our health care system, and our criminal justice
system are groaning under this burden. Our common culture and common
language are fraying. We feel that Washington has let us down. It seems
Congress and the White House just don't care.
Most of those individuals who broke the law to come here or stay
here are probably good people with good motives. But we cannot be sure.
Some may be enemy sleepers with deadly intent. Nor can we be sure how
many of them are actually here, or what countries they came from.
I can tell you that their country of origin does not matter at all
to my fellow Coloradans. What matters is their disruptive impact on our
state--disrupting self-government, disrupting safe neighborhoods,
disrupting affordable public services.
Feeling betrayed by federal inaction, Coloradans last year started
a petition to protect affordable public services by restricting them to
legal residents only, except in emergencies or by federal mandate. The
petition was called Defend Colorado Now. I was one of four co-chairmen,
Democrats and Republicans, Anglos and Hispanics, leading that campaign.
A study done for our group, based on documented statistics in the
public record, found that illegal aliens were costing state taxpayers
over $1 billion a year through the extra burden on services--and
reducing family paychecks by another $2 billion a year through lower
wages. (See full study at www.defendcoloradonow.org.)
In 2005, Colorado voters had approved a ballot issue to raise taxes
by about $1 billion a year--which would not have been necessary if the
federal government had kept its bargain for secure borders.
In 2006 Coloradans set out to do what we could about the problem
ourselves. Our petition fell short, but it did push the legislature
into passing some of the toughest ID requirements and workplace
sanctions of any state.
The legislature also asked voters to approve a lawsuit against the
US Attorney General, demanding enforcement of federal immigration laws
in order to give us some budgetary relief in the areas of health care,
law enforcement, criminal defense and incarceration, and education. It
passed by a landslide and the Colorado lawsuit is now in federal court.
We're not holding our breath, but it shows the public impatience on
this issue.
I grew up in a Colorado mountain town called Buena Vista. This week
there was a national news report alleging that radical Islamists have a
paramilitary training camp at Buena Vista. I wonder if some of them are
illegal aliens, similar to the Fort Dix cell that was recently broken
up. That's the risk we take with an unsecured border in the middle of a
global war.
As the father of a Denver police officer, I have to take such
threats seriously. One of my son's fellow officers, Donald Young, was
brutally murdered by an illegal alien two years ago this month. My son
has a T-shirt that says ``Never Forget.'' Coloradans have not
forgotten, but we can't solve this problem without your help in
Congress.
The help we need is for you to build the fence and secure the
border, period. No amnesty for lawbreakers. No so-called comprehensive
solution for cheap votes and cheap labor. Just stop the invasion.
Thank you for the opportunity to present my state's concerns.
ATTACHMENT
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you both very much.
I know that you both indicated that you have to leave at
4:30. We have questions, but we also don't want you to miss
your planes, so if you need to leave at this point, we do
understand.
Mr. Andrews. I would be happy to take a few minutes, Madam
Chair.
Ms. Lofgren. I will begin the questioning.
Let me ask Mr. Zine. It has been a pleasure to work with
the City of Los Angeles and the National League of Cities. You
note in your testimony that the National League ``opposes the
conscription of local personnel to enforce Federal immigration
laws and you urge us not to transfer responsibility of
enforcing immigration laws to States or local government.''
What do you think would be the consequences of doing that?
What is your concern about the unintended consequence of having
State and local governments enforce Federal immigration laws?
Mr. Zine. The concern with that is that we don't have
sufficient personnel to handle the routine calls for service.
We are trying to get to 10,000 police officers in the City of
Los Angeles. We have a 4 million person population. We are
9,500 and we are struggling to recruit police officers.
We don't have the personnel to handle our basic
responsibilities. If we start doing immigration enforcement--
when I joined the police department in 1968, we did immigration
enforcement. And we would find an individual who was illegal in
this country, we would take them down to Immigration, they
would take custody. The volume wasn't what it is today. It is
really physically impossible with the limited resources we
have.
The other issue is, it breaks down that relationship we try
to build with the immigrant populations. We speak over 130
languages in the City of Los Angeles. If we start doing that
with our police officers, we are going to break down whatever
we have established in relationships community policing with
many of the people who come here from Armenia, from many, many
countries. It is not just one particular ethnic group.
And the problem is that we don't have the personnel, we are
going to break down whatever relationships we have established
with these groups, and many of them are hardworking people
trying to strive for that American dream.
Ms. Lofgren. I am going to not use all of my time and allow
the Ranking Member to ask his questions. We are doing an
abbreviated set of questions so we can get to the others on the
panel.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for your testimony, both of you.
Mr. Zine, first, as I listen to your testimony here, this
thought occurs to me. You have quite a list of things that we
need to do. Quite comprehensive in this list, and many of them
have significant merit.
I will take you back, though, to--I can't get past a
question, it happens to me once in a while, if I can't resolve
something on the road to somewhere, I have to go back and fix
that spot. And so that piece that I don't comprehend is the
comprehensive immigration reform proposal at its very base and
foundation, and that is a recognition by I believe this panel
and certainly a consensus of the witnesses that have been
before it that if you legalize people that are currently here
illegally, they will have access to more government services,
not less. And the cost then to local government in particular
increases significantly.
So as I listen to your proposal for solutions, I would
wonder why you want to have my burden on local government, at
least so far as those benefits are concerned, rather than less,
which would come from enforcement of the immigration law.
Mr. Zine. What we are talking about is a buy-in to the
system. We are talking about having to pay the taxes, having to
pay the fees, having them legitimized within the system.
What we have found is deportation doesn't work. People get
deported and they come right back. So we are looking at
realistically how do we deport 12 million people, what do we do
with the children that are born here in America that we are now
going to have to deal with.
Mr. King. Mr. Zine, even though abbreviated, I still don't
think I understand that in that you will have more burden on
the local taxpayer on a per capita basis just by legalizing the
people that are here. If they aren't going to move out of Los
Angeles County, you are still going to have that burden, only
it will be greater because they will have access to more
services.
So doesn't that put more burden on the people that are
currently there?
Mr. Zine. Well, they have access to all the services now,
within the County of Los Angeles, the county hospitals, the
education system. That is one of the problems that we have.
They are already taking advantage of those systems and costing
the taxpayers.
Mr. King. I don't think we are going to agree on that.
Mr. Zine. They are not excluded, in other words. They are
not excluded from any of the basic services that we provide,
whether it be education or hospital.
Mr. King. But they are excluded from some Federal services,
and that I will think you will acknowledge.
Mr. Zine. But not local services.
Mr. King. Thank you. That is your business down there, I
guess.
Let me ask you another question, then. You don't cooperate
with Federal officials. You are a sanctuary city. And that is--
I think we understand the meaning of that term as I use it
here. If we give you--grant you--or if you get your version of
comprehensive immigration reform, would you then consider
amending that ban on cooperating with Federal law enforcement
officials and help us cooperate at the local level to enforce
the new immigration law?
Mr. Zine. Well, once we approach something that is
realistic, that we see employer verification, if you are going
to work, no matter what type of industry you are going to work
in, you are going to have that verification, we would be more
than happy to work in cooperative relationship to enforce that
against the employer, against the employee, so we have
something with some teeth. Right now we don't have anything.
Mr. King. Will you gather information on the street as it
came across to the officers, which is now prohibited?
Mr. Zine. It is now prohibited, but once we have this--but,
see, part of it is you have to be legitimate. The employer-
employee. Once we have reached that point, you have got to have
it. We want enforcement. Then it would go to the police
commission and go to the city leaders.
Mr. King [continuing]. Officers on the street that know
they are looking at people that are unlawfully present standing
on the streets of Los Angeles today, and they are prohibited
from engaging those people. Would you maintain that kind of a
policy or would you cooperate with Federal law and help us,
when we turn over the new coin?
Mr. Zine. Once the new coin is turned over, then I am sure
the policymakers would have a different approach. But let me
say this about illegal immigration. An individual commits a
crime in Los Angeles and they are illegal, we do enforce the
immigration laws against people that are committing crimes.
Mr. King. I understand that.
Mr. Zine. We are not going out there and asking for
identification. Once they commit a crime, then we use all the
resources of the Federal, local and State governments. But that
is another policy matter that would come before us for review.
I would support something like that because we are not
going to have it without teeth and cooperation.
Mr. King. Thank you.
I yield back.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
Mr. Gutierrez?
Mr. Gutierrez. Thank you very much.
I thank the witnesses for their testimony.
In Chicago we have Michigan Avenue. It is know as ``The
Magnificent Mile.'' But there is a street called 26th Street in
Little Village. It is not called ``Magnificent 26th Street.''
But it collects second only to ``The Magnificent Mile'' in
sales tax, the second street in the whole city of Chicago. It
is a two-mile long, immigrant community rebuilding that
community and bringing sales tax there. I just wanted to make
that point very quickly.
I wanted to ask Mr. Andrews, in Colorado, are undocumented
or as you refer to them illegal workers exempted from paying
sales tax when they make a purchase at a local store?
Mr. Andrews. Of course not, Congressman.
Mr. Gutierrez. When they pay their cable bill, are they
exempted from the tax that is imposed on the cable bill?
Mr. Andrews. Not at all.
Mr. Gutierrez. No. How about when they pay their electric
bill and we tax their electric bill?
Mr. Andrews. Not at all.
Mr. Gutierrez. Gas bill? I guess they are not exempted from
that bill. Let me see what else. I am just trying to think of
what taxes I pay. Let me see. My phone bill and my cell phone
bill has Federal, state and local taxes on my phone bill, both
my phone bill at my home and my cell phone bill. I pay property
taxes. I imagine you know that they own property, they own
homes. So they are not exempted in the state of Colorado from
paying property taxes. I imagine you agree with that?
Mr. Andrews. I see where you are going, Congressman----
Mr. Gutierrez. I just want an answer to the question. Are
they exempted from paying property taxes?
Mr. Andrews. There is no exemption that I know of for any
tax.
Mr. Gutierrez. Gasoline taxes, when they fill their tank up
with gasoline? Tobacco taxes, if they have that particular
vice? Liquor taxes, if they have that one? If they open a
business, I imagine they are not exempted from paying fees to
the city or the State. And they are not exempted from paying
Federal income tax, State, local tax, or any city tax. They are
really not exempted from any of the taxes.
So these 250 to 750, this wide range of people that we
don't know how many there are, are not exempted from paying any
of those taxes.
Mr. Andrews. To the extent, sir, that they are on the
books. And their employment, if some of them are of the books,
obviously they are not being taxed.
Mr. Gutierrez. I knew you were going to go to that point,
Mr. Andrews. But the employer is required to deduct from their
payroll. And did you know, Mr. Andrews, that there are over $30
billion in unaccounted, unidentified, can't identify who the
people are, in the Social Security Trust Fund? Over $30
billion.
Do you know that every year tens of thousands of ``no
match'' letters are sent out to employers by Social Security
because they can't match the name, yet those funds are
continuing to flow to our Social Security Trust Fund?
Mr. Andrews. All I am able to speak to, Congressman, is the
methodology of our study in Colorado, which accounting for the
taxes estimated to be contributed by those illegally present in
the United States, still leaves us with a net taxpayer burden
in Colorado of $1 billion a year, sir.
Mr. Gutierrez. I know that there are politicians, I am sure
present company excluded, who wish to say our school system is
failing, crime is on the increase, because I listened to your
testimony and read it, and then simply attribute it to
undocumented workers in this county when indeed they do pay
taxes in abundance.
Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and thank you for
letting me extend my time.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
The gentleman's time has expired, and Mr. Zine has left us.
The Ranking Member has asked unanimous consent that he be
recognized for 2 minutes. And, without objection, he is
recognized for 2 minutes.
Mr. King. I thank the Chair, and she reads hand signals
very well.
I would like to give Senator Andrews an opportunity to
explain that viewpoint that I think might have been somewhat
frustrated, and I yield to you.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. King, but I think my response
to Mr. Gutierrez, point well taken about the contributions in
sales and other forms of taxation that are made by individuals
present in Iowa or Illinois or Colorado, legally or illegally.
The methodology of the study, to which I have referred the
Committee in its full text, posted on the Web site of the
Defend Colorado Now campaign, made allowances for the estimated
tax contributions of this three-quarter million illegal
population in Colorado and still concluded that legal residents
were paying an extra $1 billion in public services to support
them.
Mr. King. Picking up on that, what I get in the middle of
my packing plant area, where I grew up and where I live, are
manilla envelopes full of check stubs from people that are
working in the packing plant and there will be nothing deducted
for State or Federal income taxes, because there are people
that are claiming the maximum number of dependents, whether
they actually have them or not, it is very unlikely.
They do pay Social Security and they sacrifice their Social
Security to the account that Mr. Gutierrez mentioned, but
oftentimes, and we had testimony before this Committee just
last year, that somewhere between 45 percent and 55 percent are
being paid off the books. They don't pay income tax. They don't
pay Social Security. But that Social Security that goes into
that account is something that is unlawfully earned, every
time. And so I don't think we have an obligation to hand
somebody back some money that they unlawfully earned.
I yield back to Mr. Andrews.
Mr. Andrews. I do need to go. I appreciate the Chairman's
courtesy in changing the schedule in order that I can make my
plane.
It was my honor to testify here in 2003 on the Matricula
Consular card, restrictions passed with my legislative
sponsorship in Colorado. I remember a spirited exchange between
myself and Congressman Gutierrez at that time, and I welcome
the opportunity to have a similar exchange with the Committee
today.
Thank you so much.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much, Senator.
And as mentioned before, we may have written questions that
we will ask you to respond to.
We are now going to turn to our other patient witnesses.
First, Councilwoman Santos, we are honored to hear from
you.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE SHARON TOMIKO SANTOS, WASHINGTON
STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF STATE
LEGISLATURES
Ms. Santos. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member King and
Members of the Subcommittee, I am Washington State
Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos.
I appear today on behalf of the National Conference of
State Legislatures, a bi-partisan organization representing the
50 State legislatures and the legislators. I co-chair NCSL's
Executive Committee Task Force on Immigration and the States.
Madame Chairwoman, thank you for your leadership in
examining the impact of immigration on the States. My comments
represent NCSL's policy on immigration reform, and I ask that
our policy be placed in the record.
With bipartisan consensus, we call on the Federal
Government to act now to pass comprehensive immigration
legislation to enhance our border security, address the
inequities in our system and assist the States with the impact
and integration of immigrants, especially in our health care,
education and justice systems.
States are often left to pay for programs required by
Federal law as well as services mandated by the courts with
limited Federal reimbursements. Our Nation's immigration laws
must not contain unfunded mandates nor preempt areas of
existing State authority.
CBO estimates significant cost shifts to the States in
education and health care systems. States are still the
provider of last resort, especially in protecting public health
and safety and providing emergency health care. Public hospital
ERs are often the first point of entry for medical care. We
also are expected to provide public health services and to help
control potential bioterrorism threats, SARS, and avian flu.
We struggle with the demands upon our pre-K to 12 education
systems. In the Seattle public schools, students speak more
than 100 languages and dialects. Statewide, the ESL population
has doubled in the last 10 years. According to superintendents
with high immigrant enrollment, at least 16,000 Washington
students are in danger of not being graduating due to language
requirements.
We need additional resources to meet the No Child Left
Behind requirement. We also believe that it is imperative to
provide language and education to newcomers, including
temporary and guest workers, to facilitate their successful
integration into society as well as into the economy.
Substantial Federal funding for English-language instruction
and ESL can assist the States in these efforts.
States must be able to count on a reliable guaranteed
funding source to manage the fiscal impact of providing health
and education to immigrant populations. Last year's Senate bill
and the STRIVE bill included State impact grants to ameliorate
these costs. NCSL will only support comprehensive immigration
reform legislation if it includes these crucial grants to the
States. These funds must be subject to State legislative
appropriations, providing public accountability for these
funds.
The cost of incarcerating unauthorized immigrants that have
committed crimes in State and local jails should be fully borne
by the Federal Government through the State Criminal Alien
Assistance Program. Currently, SCAAP only reimburses about 25
percent of the cost incurred by States. The President's fiscal
year 2008 budget eliminates these reimbursements. Shifting
Federal costs to States weakens our intergovernmental
partnership to combat crime and is an untenable, unfunded
Federal mandate.
I ask you to place correspondence between my governor and
the U.S. attorney general in the record.
Ms. Lofgren. Without objection.
[The letter referred to is included in the attachments to
Ms. Santos' prepared statement.]
Ms. Santos. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
This document invoices the Federal Government for non
fairly reimbursing my State under SCAAP. In fiscal year 2005,
Washington spent $27 million to temporarily hold Federal
prisoners. We were reimbursed $1.72 million.
Madam Chairwoman, we urge you to convey to the
appropriators the vital need for Federal funding for SCAAP and
to include full reimbursement in any comprehensive immigration
reform law.
In late 1999, a terrorist was apprehended crossing
Washington's northern border. U.S. security needs must be met
at all ports of entry and we support full Federal funding for
technological and infrastructure improvement and renewed
cooperation to counter human trafficking and drug smuggling.
Security needs, however, must also recognize that border State
economies are intertwined with our neighbors.
NCSL supports comprehensive immigration reform that
includes a temporary worker program and an earned legalization
program for unauthorized immigrants that is not amnesty but a
way for people who want to remain here in this country to
accept a reasonable punishment and work toward legalizing their
status.
State legislators deeply care about immigration reform,
Madam Chairwoman. I ask that the NCSL reports of State
legislative action be placed in the record. This year, more
than 1,000 legislative bills have been introduced. It is
unprecedented.
You truly are the only policymakers that can fix this
problem.
I thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Santos follows:]
Prepared Statement of Sharon Tomiko Santos
Good Afternoon.
Madame Chairwoman, Ranking Member King and Members of the
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security,
and International Law. I am State Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos.
I serve as a member of the Washington State House of Representatives
and as House Majority Whip. I appear today on behalf of the National
Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), a bi-partisan organization
representing the 50 state legislatures and the legislatures of our
nation's commonwealths, territories, possessions and the District of
Columbia. I am also co-chair of NCSL's Executive Committee Task Force
on Immigration and the States.
Madame Chairwoman, I would like to take this opportunity to thank
you for your leadership on this issue and your recognition of the
importance of examining the impact of immigration on states and
localities. State legislators deeply care about immigration reform and
in a bipartisan fashion call on the federal government to pass
legislation that will enhance our border security, while addressing the
inequities in our current system. The federal government must also deal
with the consequences of its immigration policy decision-making.
Immigration reform must assist the states with the impact and
integration of immigrants, especially on our health care, education and
justice systems.
I represent one of the most diverse communities in Seattle,
Washington, the 37th District, home to a 25 percent foreign-born
population. Overall, more than 12 percent of the state's population is
foreign-born and only nine other states have a higher growth rate when
it comes to their foreign-born population. Our state has been
strengthened by the contributions of immigrants. Immigrants have been a
source of economic development, especially in the agriculture and
technological sectors. Over 60 percent of the state's agricultural
industry is comprised of immigrant labor.
Federal immigration policy will determine whether we have a stable
and reliable workforce. The value of our hand-harvested fruit
industries exceeds $1.6 billion an year. Particularly, our apple and
cherry industries are heavily dependent on migrant and seasonal farm
workers. Immigration policy will also have an impact on other
Washington-based industries, such as the public utility industry and
the impending retirement wave in this sector. Forty-two percent of
Puget Sound Energy's work force is eligible to retire in the next five
years.
Madame Chairwoman, the United States security needs must be met on
all ports of entry, the southern and also the northern border. As you
know, Washington is a border state and in late 1999, a terrorist was
apprehended crossing this very northern border. We must keep our
citizens secure. Yet, without compromising this critical security need,
we need to consider that the northern border region is becoming
increasingly economically integrated. One example that comes to mind is
the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. For my
state it is critical to harness the beneficial effects connected to an
event of this magnitude and to facilitate a visit to the United States
for many guests from all over the world.
Although immigration policy falls under the jurisdiction of the
federal government, the impact of these policies are directly felt by
the states. States are often left to pay for programs required by
federal law as well as services mandated by the courts with limited
federal reimbursements. The arrival of immigrants into an area requires
programs and policies specifically directed towards the needs of
immigrants while encouraging economic, social, and civic integration
within the community.
Last year, NCSL's leadership created an Executive Committee Task
Force on Immigration and the States to examine both the state and
federal roles in immigration reform, to consider NCSL policy and to
examine the impact of immigrants on states. I speak today representing
the bipartisan consensus that led to the adoption of our current NCSL
policy on Immigration Reform. Immigration is now a 50-state issue--
concerning not only border states like my own but states in the South
and Midwest, some of whom have seen a 400 percent increase in the
number of foreign born residents over the last ten years. Madame
Chairwoman, I ask that the NCSL policy be placed in the record.
While immigration policy is a federal responsibility, there has
been an unprecedented level of activity in state legislatures on this
issue, especially in the absence of a federal solution.
All 50 state legislatures have addressed immigration-related
legislation in their 2007 legislative sessions and over 1150 bills have
been introduced. This is already twice the number of bills compared to
the full 2006 sessions (570). Up to this point, 18 states have enacted
57 bills (as compared to 90 enactments during the entire 2006
legislative sessions.)
The main topics addressed by these bills are employment, law
enforcement, benefits and education. Also, there is significant
activity by the states in preventing human trafficking. Many state
legislatures are still in session, meaning that it is quite likely that
there will be even more activity as the year progresses. Madame
Chairwoman, I ask that the full NCSL reports of state legislative
activity from 2006 and 2007 be placed in the record.
Madame Chairwoman, we urge you and the members of the Subcommittee
to consider the impact of immigration policy changes on the states.
Federal immigration policy must strike a balance among core principles
of our democracy: preserving the safety and security of our nation,
encouraging the economic strength of our states and communities, and
recognizing our history as a nation of immigrants. Our nation's
immigration laws must not contain unfunded mandates nor preempt areas
of existing state authority. Federal immigration reform will not be
comprehensive unless it addresses the impact of immigration on the
states--border security and law enforcement, the costs of health and
education and civic integration.
border security and the role of state and local law enforcement
Border enforcement is critical and we support full federal funding,
especially for personnel and improvements in technology and
infrastructure. State lawmakers have also called for renewed
cooperation to counteract human trafficking and drug-smuggling.
Madame Chairwoman, NCSL opposes proposals to shift the federal
responsibility of enforcing civil immigration law to state and local
law government, thus diverting critical resources from state and local
law enforcement agencies and compromising public safety. Enforcement of
federal immigration laws is a federal responsibility; state governments
are already required to assist the federal government in criminal
immigration violations. Civil immigration law enforcement, i.e. being
in the country without permission, should remain the responsibility of
the federal government, and only the federal government. State and
local government law enforcement and public safety personnel are
already asked, without the benefit of adequate federal assistance, to
incarcerate, detain and transport unauthorized immigrants who have
committed crimes. States do not have the funding and/or resources to
train their employees in the matters of immigration law, unless the
state has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which will be
specific to that state. The MOU, currently used by states such as
Alabama and Florida and counties such as Los Angeles County and
Mecklenburg County, gives states and localities the option to enter
into a voluntary formal agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. When training under the MOU process is fully funded by the
federal government, we view this as a viable way to give states and
communities the choice of whether local enforcement of federal
immigration laws is appropriate for them. As you know, training for
state and local officers regarding the complexities of immigration law
is crucial to avoid the risk of compromising successful community
policing efforts and exposing governments to increased liability from
the very communities that they serve as well as to avoid complaints of
racial profiling.
The burden of incarcerating unauthorized immigrants who have
committed crimes, been convicted and are serving their time in state
and local jails should be fully borne by the federal government. The
State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) is a federal program
through which states are reimbursed for the costs associated with
incarcerating unauthorized aliens. SCAAP currently reimburses state and
local governments for approximately 25 percent of the total costs
incurred. There have been repeated efforts by the federal government to
zero out this funding, including in the President's FY 2008 budget.
Shifting these costs to cities and states weakens the intergovernmental
partnership to combat crime. No immigration reform legislation will be
complete without due attention to both the programmatic and fiscal
aspects of SCAAP.
Madame Chairwoman, Washington state taxpayers bear a significant
amount of the costs incurred through the incarceration of criminal
unauthorized immigrants. I ask that correspondence between my Governor
Christine Gregoire and the U.S. Attorney General be included in the
record. Governor Gregoire has invoiced the federal government for not
fairly reimbursing Washington state through the SCAAP program. In FY
2005, the Department of Corrections incarcerated almost a thousand
criminal unauthorized immigrants at a cost of $74 a day. This amounts
to a total of $27 million. Of this amount, the federal SCAAP program
only reimbursed Washington $1.72 million. This represents approximately
$4.75 per day. The total shortfall of federal reimbursements amounted
to over $25 million in FY 2005. It is an untenable unfunded federal
mandate. We urge you to ensure full reimbursement to the states for the
cost of incarcerating undocumented immigrants both in any comprehensive
immigration reform law and the FY 2008 appropriations. Madame
Chairwoman, as the committee of jurisdiction we urge you to convey to
the appropriators the vital need for full funding of this program.
health care, education and civic integration
CBO has estimated significant costs to the states in education and
health care systems. The 1996 federal welfare law established a five
year bar on SCHIP/Medicaid, food stamps, TANF and SSI for legal
immigrants. Yet, state governments are still the providers of last
resort, particularly in protecting public health and public safety and
providing emergency health care. State governments also fund and
provide critical English-language instruction and public education to
newcomers that are essential for promoting public safety, reducing
community tensions and integrating newcomers into our communities,
including those who might be here on a temporary basis. Currently,
public hospital emergency rooms are often the first point of entry when
this population needs medical care. The costs are significant as
medical conditions are often in an advanced stage. Because states and
local governments enhance their partnership with the federal government
in anti-terrorism activities, we are concerned about effectively
providing public health services, which include encouraging residents
to seek emergency health care and report disease to health officials in
order to control potential bioterrorism threats, SARS, and avian flu.
It is important that any immigration reform bill address health care
planning and services that remove the burden from public hospitals and
take into consideration the necessity of public health interventions.
Madame Chairwoman, we also struggle with the needs of pre-K to 12
education. I represent two school districts, Seattle and Renton. In the
Seattle public schools district, students speak more than a hundred
languages and dialects, including Vietnamese, Spanish, Chinese,
Cambodian, Lao, Tagalog, Korean, Samoan, Amharic, Tigrigna, Russian,
Ukrainian, and Somali. In the Renton school district, seventy-five home
languages or dialects are represented among students and the English
learner population (ELL) has increased more than 51 percent since 2000.
Statewide, the ELL population has doubled in the last ten years. Most
of these students are second and third generation, rather than
immigrant students, and the majority of these students are Hispanic.
Thirty-five superintendents from districts with high Hispanic
student enrollment petitioned Governor Gregoire, the State
Superintendent and Members of the Legislature regarding the delay of
Washington State Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) requirements. In
the petition, the superintendents identify improvements in the system
but also make it very clear that 16,000 students in Washington are in
danger of not being allowed to graduate from high-school due to
language requirements. Let me quote the superintendents' petition:
``The educational system (. . .) has failed to let us meet the needs of
so many of our students because the system has not provided us with
adequate time and resources to get the job done.'' We need additional
resources to ensure that these children meet the No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) standards.
Additionally, we believe that it is imperative to provide language
and education to newcomers to our country in order to accomplish
successful integration into American society and culture. English-
language acquisition is essential for newcomers, including temporary
workers. Substantial federal support for English-language instruction
would enable states and towns to better educate children and adults and
help to integrate these newcomers into our communities. As state and
local government elected officials we find that the inability to
communicate and understand each other serves as a flash point for
aggravating tensions between newcomers and citizens. Assisting state
and local government in English-language instruction for newcomers can
help to alleviate these tensions and improve overall community
relations.
state impact grants
A critical component of last year's Senate bill and this year's
STRIVE bill is state impact grants to ameliorate the costs states bear
in health and education. NCSL will only support comprehensive
immigration reform legislation if it includes these crucial grants.
It is essential that state and local governments have a reliable,
guaranteed funding source to manage the fiscal impacts of providing
health, education (both pre-K-12 as well as ESL and civics for adults)
to immigrant populations, including temporary and guest workers. These
funds must be subject to state legislative appropriations, providing
accountability for application of these funds to vital services. We
urge inclusion of this or a similar provision in comprehensive
immigration reform legislation this year.
other key issues for comprehensive immigration reform
There are a number of key features that NCSL deems necessary in
order for any comprehensive immigration legislation to succeed. NCSL
supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes a temporary
worker program and an earned legalization program for unauthorized
immigrants that is not amnesty but a way for people who want to remain
in this country to accept a reasonable punishment and work towards
legalizing their status.
NCSL supports the creation of a temporary worker program, which
will better ensure border security by providing a legal channel for
people wanting to come into our country. This program will require
state-federal cooperation.
NCSL supports efforts prioritizing the promotion of citizenship and
creating an earned legalization program for unauthorized immigrants
currently in the country. This should not be a program providing for
amnesty, but rather create a way for people who want to remain in this
country to accept a reasonable punishment and work towards citizenship.
NCSL supports full, appropriate and necessary federal funding for
increases in Department of Homeland Security border enforcement
personnel and for improvements in technology and infrastructure.
Investments in technology and infrastructure can effectively leverage
manpower and maximize the capacity of federal border enforcement agents
in securing the borders. Related to efforts against human trafficking
and drug smuggling, states have been leaders in addressing these
concerns. We encourage the federal government to increase its
enforcement of these crimes. The federal government should plan and
fully fund the required services and facilities related to these
crimes.
Madame Chairwoman, Ranking Member King and Members of the
Subcommittee, I thank you for this opportunity to testify and look
forward to questions from members of the subcommittee.
Attachments:
1. NCSL Immigration Reform Policy
2. 2006 State Immigration Legislation
3. 2007 State Immigration Legislation
4. Letter From Washington Governor Gregoire to U.S. Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales
ATTACHMENTS
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very, very much. And all of those
documents will, as mentioned, be placed in the record.
Dr. Appold, we would like to hear from you.
TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN J. APPOLD, Ph.D., KENAN INSTITUTE OF
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
Mr. Appold. Hi. I am Steve Appold from the Frank Hawkins
Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
I was part of the team that put together the Institute's
report on the economic impact of the Hispanic population on the
state of North Carolina. North Carolina was a key expansion
State for Hispanic immigrants during the 1990's and the first
half of this decade. This is, other States have more and a
higher proportion of Hispanics, but during the 1990's the
Hispanic population rose faster in North Carolina than in any
other State.
A large proportion of North Carolina's Hispanic population
consists of recent immigrants and their families, which is why
we, for our purposes, can use those terms almost
interchangeably. You could not do that in another State; in 10
years you won't be able to do that in North Carolina either.
But that influx of immigration brought about a large amount
of interest and concern in the State about the impact on
business, government and other aspects of social life.
The Kenan Institute was commissioned by the North Carolina
Bankers Association to lay out some basic facts about the
demography and economic impact of Hispanic immigration. Copies
of the report are available from the Institute's Web site, and
I have brought several copies with me. I don't see them, but I
left them down in 2138 earlier today.
Our basic finding for North Carolina is that Hispanic
immigrants are a fiscal drain on State and local governments,
costing $61 million more or less in 2004 for an average of $102
per Hispanic resident, but create an overall economic advantage
through their consumer spending and cost-effective labor that
supports key industries, including construction and
agricultural processing. I had better be careful saying that
since I did walk through the rally earlier today.
But that is, much like localities offering relocation
inducements to firms in order to capture the benefits of
employment growth, the immigration business model, if I can
call it that, that seems to be working in North Carolina is one
of providing a focused subsidy in order to increase overall
gain. The balance differs from State to State and will most
likely vary over time.
Right now I want to concentrate on our methodology rather
than discuss our results. Our analysis consisted of five key
steps, each relying on and extending federally-funded data
collection. We needed to estimate the total Hispanic
population, Hispanic consumer spending power and economic
impact of that spending, the taxes paid, critical public costs,
and we limited our attention to three areas: education, health
care delivery and criminal justice and productivity effects.
What we did was attempt a broad, overall synthesis so that
many different data sources, including federally-funded data
collection, extensive interviews with public official service
providers and business people and public administrative records
were used.
We wanted an accounting of costs and benefits that was as
close to the ground as possible. Studies of immigrant impacts
are often driven as much by their modeling assumptions as by
the data, and we wanted to get as close to the data as
possible. Unfortunately, we needed to estimate our information
much more than we would have liked. The data for accurate,
timely measurements often do not exist. Moreover, we found that
we were sometimes forced to explore new ground in making those
estimates.
Before I became involved with this project, I had assumed
that everything that could be said already had been said since
Hispanic migration has been occuring for several decades. I was
wrong. Key areas of analysis that might support informed public
policy were simply missing.
Since completing this study, we have refined our estimation
methods and are continuing to do so. We have also performed
similar analysis for another State and we are beginning to
investigate the factors that determine the level of costs and
benefits across States.
Thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Appold follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stephen J. Appold
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Doctor.
And we will now begin our questions. I am going to defer to
the Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Conyers, who has
another obligation pretty soon, to ask him to go first.
Mr. Conyers. Thank you.
I waive my questions, but I have the impression that we are
here weighing the obligations and costs and expenses of having
immigrants of different categories in a State versus the
benefits or economic advantages that occur by their presence.
And it seems to be that almost every witness has talked about
that this afternoon.
And we come up with an uneven response about it. And I
would like to assure the two remaining witnesses that this is
an important part of these hearings, and the documentation on
this subject is going to be part of an incredibly important way
that we work our way toward a full and comprehensive bill,
because there is a law enforcement magnet somewhere here, that
people want to punish and get rid of and build fences, and
there is another point of view that there may be benefits not
yet fully recognized by many of the legislators. And it seems
to me that the accuracy of our economic picture that we paint
in the Congress will be very important in determining how we
put together a final reform package, and that makes this
hearing very important.
So the continued cooperation with our Subcommittee Chair
would be very important.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.
The Ranking Member is recognized.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I turn first to Representative Santos. I know as I stepped
forward and took the oath of office, I reflect back on that
time, and I know you must have done the same. Do you take an
oath to uphold the rule of law as a Representative for the
State of Washington?
Ms. Santos. I take an oath to uphold the Constitution of
the United States and the Constitution of the State of
Washington.
Mr. King. Does that imply the laws underneath the
constitutions as well? Is that answer yes?
Ms. Santos. Yes.
Mr. King. Thank you. I just wanted that clarification, and
then I will move on from that. I don't want to make a point off
that necessarily.
In your testimony, you addressed the SCAAP funding and that
it is under-funded and you are only receiving 25 percent of the
costs incurred by incarcerating criminal aliens in the State of
Washington to a shortfall of I think $172 million, you
testified. But all the way across the country we have that same
kind of deficiency, if I read the reports correctly.
And so are you aware that when you--and I think you are
because I identify significant intellect there. But when you
ask for, then, a comprehensive immigration reform plan, rolled
out in the Senate today, that legalizes 12 or 20 or more
million people, that really means the end of SCAAP funding for
that massive number of people, and maybe it would qualify for
those newly arriving illegals that would start this process all
over again. Are you willing to make that kind of sacrifice?
Ms. Santos. Well, I am certainly not familiar with the
details of the breaking news that we heard right before we came
in, but what I do know, Congressman, is that right now we are
absorbing, our taxpayers are absorbing, the costs of enforcing
and implementing Federal laws.
Mr. King. You would lose SCAAP funding under--I mean, let's
just presume that what I said is right and no further than
that. But you would lose the SCAAP funding under that. You
wouldn't have a claim to funding for criminal aliens any
longer, because they would no longer be criminal aliens.
Ms. Santos. Well, I think that, again, the devil is in the
details, and I would hope that in other areas of the
legislation that you would, collectively, that Congress would
recognize that we all, the Federal Government and the State
government and the local government, down to our little school
boards, all share in a common objective of integrating
newcomers and ensuring----
Mr. King. You make your point that we should pay attention
to that deficiency should there be some legislation passed.
That goes into this record, and I think it is an important one
that we should all consider as we decide this argument.
But have you seen any statistics, the Federal Government is
housing 27 percent of the inmates are criminal aliens. If you
extrapolate those 25 percent numbers across the States and put
that altogether, you would come up with about 28 percent of our
State inmates and our Federal inmates are criminal aliens. They
aren't all illegal. Some of them, about 40 percent, came here
and overstayed their visas. But between them, if they are
committing that percentage of the crime, have you considered
how many murders that is, how many victims of negligent
homicide that is, and that those casualties are far greater
than the cumulative total in Iraq and September 11 together on
an annual basis?
Ms. Santos. And, Congressman, I do know that some of the
individuals who are being held, at least in my State's state
and local jails, are only being held on the basis of a traffic
violation.
Mr. King. But still, somebody is committing the murders,
the rapes, the negligent homicides, and we don't have any
evidence that the criminal aliens are committing those acts in
a lesser number as a proportion of their overall population or
their inmate base.
And so would you put this into your equation, I would ask
you to do this as a policy leader in your part of the world,
that if we enforce our immigration laws, those who are illegal
aliens would not be here. Therefore, the victims of those
crimes would still be alive. And those who are unlawfully
present here in the United States then, add that total up, and
weight that as part of your oath too. I mean, I weigh it
heavily with mine, to protect the American people as the first
priority. And I give you an opportunity to respond to that.
Ms. Santos. I think it is very important to recognize first
and foremost that those who are in prison wouldn't have the
opportunity to legalize, and I think that in terms of the
question of State legislators upholding their oath to uphold
not only the Constitution of the United States but their State
constitutions and the laws underneath, I think that you would
find that according to our NCSL policy, we are asking for the
opportunity to continue to partner with the Federal Government
to come forward with something that is comprehensive, a
framework that we could all buy into on a bipartisan basis,
because right now, as it is, we have got every State in the
union trying to step in and fill a void that currently exists.
Mr. King. Thank you.
I thank you both for your testimony, and I yield back the
balance of my time.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you.
I will now take my opportunity to ask questions and then we
will go to our second panel.
Dr. Appold, I thought your testimony was very interesting
and I had a chance to read through it. I want to ask just a
couple of questions.
On Page 7 of your testimony, you basically come to the
conclusion, using the analysis that you have done, that there
is a cost of between the tax contributions and major public
costs, of $102 per Hispanic resident. But then you go on to
talk about the labor power and the other benefits.
Have you calculated or is it possible to calculate the
labor benefits that you then discuss and the economic activity?
I mean, what is the bottom line? Is there a way to get there?
Mr. Appold. We are not 100 percent satisfied with our way
of merging the three different areas of the analysis. There is
a way to do that, but we have not completed it yet.
So what we did is we identified the impacts of consumer
spending, the fiscal balance and the productivity impacts
separately.
Ms. Lofgren. Okay. So are you still working on that?
Mr. Appold. Yes.
Ms. Lofgren. So we might get a later report?
Mr. Appold. Not this afternoon. [Laughter.]
Ms. Lofgren. Not this afternoon. That is fair enough.
Let me just----
Mr. Appold. But if you say you want it, that will encourage
us to work harder.
Ms. Lofgren. It is very interesting. He and Councilman Zine
had to get to their planes, but State Senator Andrews
referenced a study that they did. I don't have the methodology,
and they came up with, you know, a huge cost that they are
suspecting in his State. I don't know if you have had a chance
to review the Rector Study from the Heritage Foundation, but
they come up with a cost. I mean, the reports really are all
over the board, and I am sort of wondering what methodology
should be relied upon.
Mr. Appold. Well, what we reacted to, there is some very
good work that was done in the late 1990's, the New Americans,
and I believe The Heritage Foundation builds off that
methodology.
And that is a very nice methodology, but it relies a lot on
certain assumptions. And if I go look at the National Bureau of
Economic Research's Web site, I can download papers that come
to very different kinds of conclusions, and it is all based on
what assumptions they start with.
And so what we did is we figured we could not contribute
something to that debate. These are smart people. They have
been going back and forth for at least a decade. We would stay
close to the ground and come as close to measuring as we could.
Ms. Lofgren. Very interesting.
Councilwoman Santos, I was in local government for longer
than I have been in Congress, and I really know what it is like
to be in local government, where the rubber meets the road. And
your testimony is important to us.
In addition to your official duties on the City Council, I
know that you have an interest in the overall economy of your
region, and I note that 42 percent of the Puget Sound Energy's
workforce is eligible to retire in the next 5 years. How are
you going to meet the job needs? Are you looking to immigration
to meet that economic fall from retirement?
Ms. Santos. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And, of course, I
serve in the State legislature, so I have, from the standpoint
of----
Ms. Lofgren. I really messed that up, haven't I. I am so
sorry.
Ms. Santos. They get paid better than we do at the State,
so----
Ms. Lofgren. That is true.
Ms. Santos. Yes, that is true, and I would direct your
attention to actually an article a business columnist for one
of our Seattle dailies, who made the point that not only is 42
percent of Puget Sound Energy's workforce scheduled to retire
in the next 5 years, but there is also about 25 percent of the
Boeing machinists who will be scheduling to retire within the
next 5 years. I think they said that 5,000 out of 21,000
machinists in the Puget Sound region are over the age of 50 and
something like 8 percent are over the age of 60.
I think about our $1.6 billion apple industry, which is
handpicked fruit. Cherries are the same way, largely dependent
on the migrant seasonal labor force that comes through
California, Oregon, and Washington. It is important for us to
ensure that the temporary and the seasonal workforce needs of
the States are addressed. I might also add in the high tech
arena as well.
Ms. Lofgren. Representative, my apologies for calling you
councilwoman.
And I will just note that in a different role, as Chair of
the California Democratic Delegation, we have worked very hard
on SCAAP funding and agree.
Ms. Santos. Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to thank the two witnesses for
their patience and sticking with us to give your testimony, for
your answers to our questions, and note that we have 5
legislative days to submit questions in writing. If we have
further questions, we will forward them to you and ask that if
you are able to respond as promptly as possible, that would be
very much appreciated.
We are aware that witnesses testify really as a
contribution to our country, and we appreciate your
contribution today very much indeed.
Ms. Santos. Thank you for inviting us.
Mr. Appold. Thank you.
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to call the second panel.
I would like to introduce our second panel.
First, we are pleased to have Dr. Audrey Singer with us
today, the immigration fellow at the Brookings Institution
Metropolitan Policy Program. An accomplished scholar, Dr.
Singer joined Brookings after having served as an associate at
the International Migration Policy Program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. She held a faculty position
in the Department of Democraphy at Georgetown University and
has worked as a demographic analyst at the U.S. Department of
Labor. She holds her bachelor's degree from Temple University
and both her master's and doctoral degrees from the University
of Texas at Austin.
I would like next to welcome Dr. Anne Morrison Piehl, an
associate professor in the Economics Department and a member of
the program in criminal justice at Rutgers, the State
University of New Jersey. In addition to her responsibilities
at Rutgers, Dr. Piehl serves as a research associate at the
National Bureau of Economic Research. She also held a teaching
post at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University for 12 years. She earned her bachelor's degree from
Harvard and her Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Next we are pleased to have Dr. Deborah Santiago with us,
the Vice President for policy and research at Excelencia in
Education. Prior to her work at Excelencia, Dr. Santiago served
as an analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, as deputy
director of the White House Initiative on Educational
Excellence for Hispanic Americans, as Vice President for Data
and Policy Analysis at the Los Angeles County Alliance for
Student Achievement, and as an Irvine fellow at the Rossier
School of Education at the University of Southern California.
She holds her bachelor's degree from the University of Mary
Washington, a master's degree from Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, and a doctorate in education
policy from the University of Southern California.
Finally, we would like to welcome back the minority's
witness, Mr. Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The
Heritage Foundation here in Washington. Mr. Rector's research
has focused on the U.S. welfare system and he has authored a
number of works on the subject, including America's Failed $5.4
Trillion War on Poverty. Mr. Rector graduated with a bachelor's
degree from the College of William and Mary and a master's
degree from Johns Hopkins University. This is Mr. Rector's
second appearance before this Subcommittee on the matter of
comprehensive immigration reform.
And we do welcome all of you.
As you heard with our first panel, we do ask that you
summarize your testimony in about 5 minutes. Your entire
written statement will be made part of the record of this
hearing.
When you have consumed 4 minutes, the yellow light will go
on and when the light turns red, it means that 5 minutes is up.
And the time flies, really, it is often a surprise. We ask that
you wrap up at that point so that we will have an opportunity
to ask questions.
And again, thank you so much for being here.
We will begin with you, Dr. Singer.
TESTIMONY OF AUDREY SINGER, Ph.D., IMMIGRATION FELLOW,
METROPOLITAN POLICY PROGRAM, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Ms. Singer. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you
today about the effects of immigration on States and
localities.
My comments today will focus on three interrelated areas:
how settlement patterns of immigrants have shifted during the
past 15 years, and how many areas with no history of
immigration are experiencing recent and rapid influxes; how
although States and local areas have no control over who enters
the country, local institutions and leadership shape the
prospects for immigrant integration; finally, drawing on
existing models, I will suggest a role for the Federal
Government in helping States and localities with immigrant
integration through funding to coordinate public policy
explicitly and strategically aimed at immigrants.
As Congress continues to debate Federal immigration reform,
States and localities will deal on their own with many issues
that they view as the responsibility of the Federal Government.
I will make the case that there should be a Federal program
that helps States and localities with immigrant integration so
it is not left entirely in their hands.
As of March, 2005 an estimated 36 million immigrants were
living in the United States. Due to changes in labor markets,
today's immigrants, both legal and illegal, are increasingly
settling outside well established immigrant gateways in a new
group of cities, suburbs, small towns and rural areas. Prior to
the 1990's, immigrant settlement had a predictable pattern and
was limited to mostly cities in the southwest and coastal
States. By century's end, many places with virtually no history
of immigration were attracting immigrants.
The swiftness of the influx in areas that historically have
not accommodated large numbers of immigrants has caused social
and economic stress where institutional structures that could
assist in the integration of immigrants are insufficient or
nonexistent. Local leaders are grappling with the costs to
institutions where immigrant newcomers have the greatest
impact, such as schools, hospitals, and public safety
departments.
There has been a proliferation of State and local laws,
ordinances, proposals and practices around immigration in very
recent years. The National Conference of State Legislatures
reports that as of April 2007, all 50 States are considering
immigration-related bills, twice the number they considered in
all of last year. More than half of the bills relate to
employment, State benefits, services, law enforcement and
education issues.
In addition to State bills, countless local jurisdictions
have introduced laws related to immigrants, focusing on issues
such as day labor sites, language, employment, rental housing,
and local law enforcement.
Not all of the policy changes are restrictive or punitive.
However, it is worth noting that many of the most restrictive
measures have been developed in areas with little or no prior
experience of immigration.
Federal immigration policy all but ignores the fact that
immigrants settle into local areas. Big picture policy issues
like border enforcement and the visa allocation system are
national-level concerns. But immigrants are not evenly
distributed across the Nation. They live in cities, counties,
towns, and neighborhoods. They work in local firms, join local
religious congregations, they access State and local services.
Their children attend local schools.
Localities have no control over who enters the country, or
who lives in their communities, but they have considerable
influence over how immigrants are incorporated, socially,
economically, and civically.
Immigrant integration is an overlooked aspect of the
immigration policy arena. Integration is the long-term process
where immigrants become incorporated into U.S. life and it
involves both established residents and immigrant newcomers. It
refers to changes immigrants undergo as they adapt but it also
refers to the effect immigrants have on local institutions and
communities as well as the Nation.
In order for the U.S. immigration system to work well, it
must address the integration of immigrants who arrive with a
multitude of background characteristics. Alongside State and
local governments are schools, faith-based institutions and a
host of nonprofits, that develop programs and practices that
aid in the integration of immigrants. The quality of these
systems and institutions makes a difference in how people adapt
to life in the United States. The best thing that we can do for
communities, especially those that are newly affected by
immigration trends, is to provide guidance on policies to
facilitate integration and funding to carry them out.
There currently is no national office that works to
coordinate, measure and advance immigrant integration. What
would such a national program look like?
Seed funding for the proposed New Americans Initiative
would be provided by the Federal Government but would comprise
State initiatives built around public-private partnerships.
Several leading models exist, one in Illinois and one in
Colorado, that prioritize programs that help immigrants learn
English, gain citizenship, involve immigrant parents in schools
and provide better access to services at State agencies.
Under a national New Americans Initiative, States would be
encouraged to design their own strategic recommendations and
advisory structures, pursue funding from foundations and
businesses and work with local organizations.
The Federal Government would monitor and coordinate
processes to glean policy guidance and promising practices to
be shared across States. It would also work to first develop
and then achieve certain measurable benchmarks related to
immigrant integration.
Regardless of when immigration reform happens, States and
localities face on-the-ground realities regarding new flows of
immigration. It is time for the Federal Government to take a
leadership role in making the integration process smoother for
immigrants, State and local governments, and communities to
yield long-term benefits for the Nation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Singer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Audrey Singer
Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you today about the effects of immigration on
states and localities. My research focuses on comparative metropolitan
settlement patterns and the responses of local communities to
immigration.
My comments today will focus on three interrelated areas.
How settlement patterns of immigrants have shifted
during the past 15 years, and how many areas with no history of
immigration are experiencing recent and rapid influxes.
How although states and local areas have no control
over who enters the country, local institutions and leadership
shape the prospects for immigrant integration.
Finally, drawing on existing models, I will suggest a
role for the federal government in helping states and
localities with immigrant integration through funding to
coordinate public policy explicitly and strategically aimed at
immigrants.
As Congress continues to debate federal immigration reform, state
and localities will deal on their own with many issues that they view
as the responsibility of the federal government. The elements of
immigration reform must include border and interior enforcement, an
employment verification system, new worker program, visa reforms, and
an earned legalization program. I will make the case that there should
be a federal program that helps states and localities with immigrant
integration so it is not left entirely in their hands.
the new geography of immigration
As of March, 2005 an estimated 35.7 million immigrants (of all
legal statuses) were living in the United States. Due to changes in
labor markets, today's immigrants, both legal and illegal, are
increasingly settling outside well established immigrant gateways in a
new group of cities and suburbs. Prior to the 1990s, immigrant
settlement had a predictable pattern and was limited to mostly
Southwestern and coastal states and metropolitan New York, Los Angeles,
Miami and Chicago. By century's end, many places with virtually no
history of immigration were attracting immigrants.
The swiftness of the influx in areas that historically have not
accommodated large numbers of immigrants has caused social and economic
stress. Especially in rural areas, small towns, and suburban areas, the
institutional structures that could assist in the integration of
immigrants--both community and governmental--are insufficient or
nonexistent. Local leaders are grappling with the costs to institutions
where immigrant newcomers have the greatest impact, such as schools,
hospitals, and public safety departments.
Many large metropolitan areas as well as small towns and rural
areas saw a doubling or more of their foreign born in the 1990s alone.
The root causes of new trends in settlement are mixed. In the latter
half of the 1990s, some metropolitan areas experienced robust economic
growth, thus creating new job opportunities for immigrant (and US-born)
newcomers. In other places, refugee resettlement appears to have
increased foreign-born residents and also spurred on subsequent
migration. A third factor is the internal movement of foreign-born U.S.
residents, for instance the outflow of immigrants from Los Angeles to
other metropolitan areas in the region in search of a lower cost of
living. Underlying all of these trends are social networks of
information about jobs and housing that inform the decisions immigrants
and refugees make on where to reside.
Newly emerging immigrant gateways are drawing immigrants in record
rates. Some of the fastest growing places are in the southeast such as
Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, and Charlotte, and other new metropolitan
destinations are in the southwest, for example, Dallas-Fort Worth,
Phoenix, and Las Vegas. Several northwest metro areas like Seattle,
Portland, and Sacramento have re-emerged as immigrant gateways after
having waned as immigrant destinations during the second half of the
20th century. Most of these areas have seen their immigrant population
grow three or four fold as a result of new immigration in the past 20-
25 years (see Singer 2004).
This period marked another new immigrant settlement trend--one
taking place wholly within metropolitan areas--the suburbanization of
immigration. As the urban economy has shifted from manufacturing to new
economy services, the suburbs have become the preferred location for
dispersed commercial and office space. As immigrants have followed the
opportunities, including jobs and housing, they are now breaking with
historical patterns and moving directly from abroad to areas outside of
central cities in great numbers. This represents a departure from the
past, when the pattern was more likely to be that immigrants moved to
cities where housing and jobs were plentiful, and where they found
others from their own background. The end of the 1990s marked the first
time that the suburbs surpassed cities as the primary place of
residence among the foreign born.
While immigration is largely an urban experience in the
contemporary United States, a growing number of immigrants are also
choosing small towns and rural areas. A recent study by Penn State
sociologist Leif Jensen noted that immigrants are finding opportunities
in agriculture, food processing, and other manufacturing in rural
counties particularly in southeastern states. They are also settling in
western areas with tourism-based economies and rural areas on the
outskirts of larger, more immigrant-heavy areas. Immigrants in rural
areas are often more noticeable and can elicit strong reactions, and
the infrastructure to receive them is often nonexistent (Jensen 2006).
state and local reception of immigrants
This week, Farmers Branch, a suburb of Dallas, voted into law an
ordinance that makes it against the law for landlords to rent to
illegal immigrants. This is not the first municipality to introduce
such a measure--several localities around the country have patterned
new laws like this one after similar measures in Hazleton,
Pennsylvania. The Farmer's Branch law is emblematic of the frustration
that many local public officials feel about the lack of federal reform
and represents just one way they are choosing to take action.
There has been a proliferation of state and local laws, ordinances,
proposals, and practices around immigration in very recent years. The
National Conference of State Legislatures reports that as of April
2007, all 50 states are considering immigration-related bills--nearly
three times the number they considered last year. That amounts to over
1,100 pieces of state legislation designed to address immigration or
immigrant-related issues in the first quarter of 2007, more than twice
as many introduced in all of 2006 including:
41 states have 199 bills related to employment, most
of them restricting the employment of unauthorized workers or
addressing eligibility for workers' benefits.
39 states have 149 bills addressing state benefits
and services to immigrants. Many of these bills would restrict
services, but some broaden benefits to specific immigrant
groups.
30 states have 129 bills around law enforcement
issues, either those that would authorize local law enforcement
to work with federal immigration authorities or the opposite:
those that prohibit local law enforcement from doing so.
30 states have 105 bills dealing with education
issues related to participation in educational programs, some
restrictive, some inclusive, including bills around eligibility
for in-state reduced tuition costs.
In addition to state level reforms, countless local jurisdictions
have introduced laws related to immigrants, focusing on issues such as
day labor sites, language, employment, rental housing, and local law
enforcement. Other communities are using laws already on the books--
like residential zoning and housing ordinances--to attempt to curb the
increase of immigrants or force them out. Growing intolerance towards
illegal immigration--and growing frustration with the lack of federal
movement on immigration reform--often drives local officials towards
greater enforcement of ordinances that may deflect immigrants elsewhere
and show that they are responding to public pressure.
These new policies are in part a result of the new geography of
immigration, and the rapidity with which immigrants are appearing in
new communities. City, county and municipal officials are feeling
pressure to ``do something'' about immigration. The result is that
local governments are creating their own de facto immigration policy.
Not all of the local policy changes are restrictive or punitive;
some places have developed new policies and passed ordinances that
accommodate immigrants, such as publishing material in languages other
than English or maintaining local services for all immigrants
regardless of legal status. However, it is worth noting that many of
the most restrictive measures have been developed in areas with little
or no prior experience of immigration.
Although many of these new laws may be legally challenged and
eventually struck down, they stir up local debate and create an
uncomfortable environment for immigrants, even those who are here
legally.
Thus in the absence of federal policy, we can expect that state and
local officials who are feeling the pressure to take action will
continue to develop their own strategies for dealing with immigrants.
Regardless of how the current immigration reform debate is resolved,
they still have the day-to-day responsibility of integrating immigrants
in neighborhoods, local labor markets, and schools.
a ``new americans initiative''
Federal immigration policy all but ignores the fact that immigrants
settle into local areas. Big picture policy issues like border
enforcement and the visa allocation system are national level concerns.
But immigrants are not evenly distributed across the nation; they live
in cities, counties, towns, and neighborhoods. They attend local
schools, work in local firms, shops, and factories, join local
religious congregations, and they access state and local services.
Localities have no control over who enters the country, or who lives in
their communities, but they assert significant influence over how
immigrants are incorporated, socially, economically, and civically.
Immigrant integration is an overlooked aspect of the immigration
policy landscape. Immigrant integration is the long term process where
immigrants become incorporated into US life, and it involves both
established residents and immigrant newcomers. It means immigrants
learning English and American ways of life. It also means that American
institutions are adapting to newcomers over the long run and combining
diverse origins and perspectives into one people, the American people,
as it has done for over 200 years. Ultimately, immigrant integration
fosters social inclusiveness and economic mobility as immigrants and
their offspring become full members of US communities. It refers to
changes immigrants undergo as they adapt, but it also refers to the
effect immigrants have on local institutions and communities as well as
the nation.
In order for the U.S. immigration system to work well, it must
address the social, political, and economic integration of immigrants
who arrive with a multitude of national origins, languages, religions,
customs, and skills. The current ``system'' of integration involves
little formal aid or guidance from the federal government.
Historically, immigrants turned to mutual aid societies, settlement
houses, churches, and synagogues. Today, alongside state and local
governments are schools, churches and a host of nonprofits, that
develop programs and practices that aid in the integration of
immigrants. The quality of these systems and institutions makes a
difference in how people adapt to life in the United States; therefore
it is imperative that local areas, especially ones newly affected by
immigration trends, have guidance on policies to facilitate
integration, and, as important, funding to carry them out.
There currently is no national office that works to coordinate,
measure, and advance immigrant integration. Other countries such as
Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands include integration in their
national offices.
States and localities--particularly in new immigrant destination
areas--would benefit from intentional, strategic and coordinated public
policy directed explicitly at immigrant integration. Localities across
the country, both established areas and new destinations, will benefit
from an infusion of resources to address the short- and long-term
process of immigrant integration.
Many of the state and local policy points that I have already
mentioned are the very issues that constitute a framework for immigrant
integration. Can we build a national, harmonized system of providing
English language classes to immigrant newcomers? Can we ensure that
newcomers, while on their way to learning English, have access to vital
information about services, safety, and civic responsibilities? Can we
develop programs to assist new destination areas with resources to help
public schools, law enforcement agencies, and healthcare providers as
they encounter immigrants and refugees for the first time?
What would such a program look like? Seed funding for the proposed
New Americans Initiative would be provided by the federal government,
but would comprise state initiatives built around public-private
partnerships. A good model is a 2005 Illinois initiative designed to
provide a ``coherent, strategic, and proactive state government
approach to immigrant integration.'' In Illinois, a State Taskforce,
which includes high-level state agency and department officials, is
charged with examining how the state government can systematically
address its changing population, augmented by a Policy Council, which
includes Illinois leaders with experience managing immigration in the
business, community, philanthropic, faith, labor, and government
fields. The two groups' recommendations prioritized programs that would
help immigrants learn English, put legal immigrants on a path towards
citizenship, establish state Welcoming Centers as a first point of
contact for immigrants arriving into Illinois, and provide better
access to services that state agencies provide.
Another model comes from the Colorado Community Trust's
``Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families Initiative'' which supports
19 Colorado communities in their efforts to support immigrants and
established residents in working together for healthy communities.
Specific needs and strategies are identified through a planning process
that involves members from a wide range of perspectives: health care,
education, business, banking, law enforcement, local government, and
various nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Current projects
include strengthening local health care providers' ability to offer
competent care to people from different cultures, helping immigrant
parents to become more involved in their children's schools, improving
access to English classes for immigrants, and developing mentoring
opportunities among foreign and native-born families.
Under a national New Americans Initiative, states would similarly
be encouraged to design plans specific to their needs. Recommendations
from the Illinois experience that are universally applicable include:
Implementing an English learning campaign. Gaining
English proficiency is fundamentally important for immigrants
to participate fully in American society. This recommendation
calls for a coordinated effort among the state community
college board, businesses, educators, and immigrant advocates
to create, fund, and implement a campaign to offer English
instruction where immigrants live and work.
Helping eligible legal permanent residents attain
U.S. citizenship. When immigrants naturalize, they take on the
rights and responsibilities of being a full member of U.S.
society; they can vote, hold public office, serve on juries,
and participate in other civic activities. The program should
support community-based organizations that help immigrants
prepare for the naturalization exam and guide them through the
formal process.
Ensuring that immigrants and refugees can access
state services. While immigrants are building their English
skills, they should have good access to services and
information about state offerings, even if it must be provided
in their own languages. Many local governments across the
country already offer services and material in languages of
local immigrant groups, provide translation services, and hire
multi-lingual staff. Implementing this recommendation will make
language access a foundational method of doing business with
local governments.
For states to adopt a model such as the Illinois or Colorado
examples would require federal start-up funds. Each state would design
its own strategic recommendations and advisory structure, pursue
funding from foundations and businesses to create public-private
partnerships, and work with local organizations in affected areas. The
federal government would monitor the New Americans Initiative to glean
policy guidance and promising practices that can be shared across
states, where immigration patterns are new, changing, or well
established. It should also work to first develop and then achieve
certain measurable benchmarks related to immigrant integration.
concluding thoughts
Current legislative proposals point to the possibility of an earned
legalization program. Such a program would enable localities to
demonstrate the presence and size of their undocumented population. New
destination states and localities, especially, have short-term fiscal
burdens related to providing schooling, emergency health care, and
other social services that they cannot meet through existing revenue
sources. An earned legalization program must include funding for an
impact aid program to offset state and local expenditures.
A precedent for this proposed program is the $4 billion State
Legalization Impact Aid Grant program, a provision of the 1986
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) that helped states offset the
costs associated with legalized immigrants. The plan was to compensate
states for providing public benefits, public health services, and adult
education to help immigrants meet IRCA's requirements for basic
knowledge of the English language, U.S. history, and government.
Unfortunately, the program, which ended in 1995, was unevenly
implemented. States and localities complained that reimbursements were
too low and too slow and that reporting requirements were poorly
designed. To succeed, a new impact aid program must function better
than the last one by stating clear guidelines, allowing states planning
flexibility, and requiring less onerous reporting requirements.
A large-scale legalization program would create millions of new
legal residents whose status may result in more stable employment and
higher income, which benefit them, while the concomitantly higher
income tax payments benefit government entities. The additional
services they need should be covered in part by fees for registering
with the earned legalization program. Such fees should cover the
program's administrative costs, defray social expenditures, and
contribute to the New Americans Initiative to ensure longer term
integration.
Regardless of when immigration reform happens, states and
localities face on-the-ground realities regarding new flows of
immigration. It is time for the federal government to take a leadership
role in making the integration process smoother for immigrants, state
and local governments, and communities. Ultimately, all integration is
local.
References
Downs-Karkos, Susan. ``Immigrant Integration in Colorado.'' Denver: The
Colorado Trust.
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. For the Benefit of
All: Strategic Recommendations to Enhance the State's Role in the
Integration of Immigrants in Illinois: Joint Executive Summary,
Year One and Report of the New Americans Policy Council, Year One.
Chicago: Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, 2006.
Jensen, Leif. 2006. ``New Immigrant Settlements in Rural America:
Problems, Prospects, and Policies.'' Durham, NH: The Carsey
Institute, University of New Hampshire.
Meissner, Doris, Meyers, Deborah W., Papademetriou, Demetrios G., and
Fix, Michael. Immigration and America's Future: A New Chapter.
Report of the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's
Future, Spencer Abraham and Lee H. Hamiltion, Chairs. Washington,
D.C.: Migration Policy Institute, 2006. Available at http://
www.migrationpolicy.org/ITFIAF/index.php.
Singer, Audrey. 2004. ``The Rise of New Immigrant Gateways.''
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
Dr. Piehl?
TESTIMONY OF ANNE MORRISON PIEHL, Ph.D., DEPARTMENT OF
ECONOMICS & PROGRAM IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE, RUTGERS, THE STATE
UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
Ms. Piehl. Thank you, Chairwoman Lofgren and Ranking Member
King, for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee.
Today I am pleased to testify about the academic literature
on the relationship between immigration and crime. This
literature, and therefore my testimony, is concerned with
average behavior, so it emphasizes common crimes of violence
and property.
There are, to be sure, less common and more serious threats
associated with terrorism, but those are addressed more
directly with intelligence and enforcement.
With regard to street crime, my remarks will conclude that
the empirical research does not suggest that immigrants pose a
particular crime threat. Rather, the evidence points to
immigrants having lower involvement in crime than native-born
Americans.
The literature begins by noting that the addition of
immigrants to the population, if immigrants commit any crimes
at all, will by definition increase the total number of crimes
in the United States. Academics have generally posed the
relevant question as: do immigrants add to the crime risk in
the population?
The answer to this question would be ``yes'' if immigrants
are more likely to commit criminal acts or if immigration
causes the native born to increase their criminal behavior.
It would be reasonable to expect immigrants to have higher
levels of criminal activity compared to natives because
immigrants have traditionally rated high on factors that have
been strongly correlated with crime: higher levels of poverty,
lower levels of education, urban residence, et cetera. Some
have argued that immigration might increase the criminal
activity of the native born if immigrants displace natives from
work and promote urbanization.
But at the same time, the current policy environment
provides several mechanisms that are likely to reduce the
criminal activity of immigrants. Legal immigrants are screened
for criminal backgrounds. Non-citizens, legal or not, are
subject to the increased punishment associated with deportation
if the crime of conviction is a serious one. And illegal
immigrants have an extra incentive to steer clear of law
enforcement for even minor offenses.
So now to the evidence. Several important studies have
estimated the empirical magnitudes of these theorized
connections. First, consider the impact of immigration on crime
rates. This type of analysis aims to identify the total effect
of immigration, regardless of whether it is the immigrants or
the natives that are committing the crimes.
In an analysis of the largest U.S. cities, Kristin Butcher
and I found that in 1980's, cities that received more
immigrants had the same average change in crime as cities
receiving fewer immigrants. In the 1990's, the relationship was
actually negative, where cities that received the most
immigrants had a larger crime drop than cities receiving fewer
immigrants.
Other researchers have looked at this question by comparing
border cities to non-border cities and immigrant neighborhoods
to non-immigrant neighborhoods within the same cities, and all
of these studies support the basic inference in my own work,
that immigration is not associated with an increase in crime
rates in a locality.
Further evidence can be found in analyses of
institutionalization rates of immigrants compared to those of
natives. In an analysis of men age 18 to 40, using the United
States Census, Kristin Butcher and I found that immigrants have
much lower institutionalization rates, on the order of one-
fifth the rate of natives. And this gap has expanded over the
past 20 years.
It is important to be fair in the comparison, because
immigrants by definition have had less time to be apprehended
of crimes. And so we do some careful modeling work in that
paper to try to make a fair comparison of immigrants and
natives, and still conclude a large gap between the two.
It is possible that the threat of deportation deters
immigrant crime, but we conclude that deportation per se is not
driving these results, because even citizens who are not
subject to deportation look better than natives and
increasingly so over time.
Our interpretation of the results is that the process of
immigration selects individuals who are less likely to be
involved in crime. The best evidence of this is when we compare
immigrants to native born individuals who have migrated across
State lines, we find much less of a gap between the two.
Differences in criminality have also been studied using
survey data. In self-report surveys, we find that violent
offending is lowest for new immigrants, is higher in the second
generation and yet higher still in the third generation.
But even if immigrants have lower criminal activity than
native-born citizens, as we have heard already in earlier
testimony today, the costs of law enforcement borne by State
and local governments on behalf of immigrants can be
substantial. In my written testimony, I provide some data
showing the concentration of incarcerated immigrants in
particular States. You find, not surprisingly, that California
and Texas bear the brunt of the cost for that population.
It is also worth noting that immigration provisions
themselves may impose costs on States and localities as it
restricts their ability to manage their own prison population
through their usual mechanisms.
In conclusion, there is no empirical evidence that
immigrants pose a particular crime threat. In contrast, the
evidence points to immigrants having lower involvement in crime
than natives.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Piehl follows:]
Prepared Statement of Anne Morrison Piehl
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
Dr. Santiago?
TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH A. SANTIAGO, Ph.D., VICE PRESIDENT FOR
POLICY AND RESEARCH, EXCELENCIA IN EDUCATION
Ms. Santiago. Hello. Thank you. It is an honor to present
here in front of you today.
I want to note that I am with a national organization that
focuses on Latino student success, not to the exclusion of
others, but starting with Latinos, as sort of a footnote.
My comments here today, however, are more general, because
I am focusing on the broad costs and benefits of educating
immigrant students, and I want to make sure that those students
get service.
Immigration policy in the United States is a Federal
responsibility. We talked about that. However, the effects,
both positive and negative, of immigration are concentrated in
States and communities where immigrants lives. One of the most
contentious issues between jurisdictions is the cost of
educating immigrant students.
Attention was captured in 1982 when the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in Plyer v. Doe that children are entitled to an
education regardless of the immigration status.
Given that the Federal Government provides only about 9
percent of educational costs nationally, the majority of
funding responsibility for immigrant education comes from State
and local governments. No American institution has felt the
effects of immigration more forcefully than the Nation's public
schools. No set of American institutions is arguably more
critical to the future success of immigrant integration in our
country.
Public education is unlike any other public benefit because
of the role it plays in sustaining our political and cultural
heritage.
The main points of my testimony are as follows:
In looking at the research, the majority of studies on the
effects of educating immigrants confirm that State and local
governments experience more cost than benefit for educating
immigrants in single periods.
Most studies that examine the effects of educating
immigrants look at costs in a single period without considering
the long-term effects of education as an investment with future
benefits. For this, the methodologies are very diverse.
Third, while the Federal Government provides some Federal
support for educating immigrants to State and local school
districts, there is no doubt that this support does not cover
the entire costs of education for immigrants.
And, fourth, while States and local governments incur more
costs than benefits in the short term, they also accrue more
direct benefits in the long term for their investment.
Therefore, the appropriate Federal and State balance of funding
for immigrant education remains contentious.
Just a quick comment about some of the analysis that we
were looking at. Numerous studies provide analysis of the
educational costs the States incur in educating immigrant
students in a single time period. For example, a study by the
Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that in a
single year the cost of educating immigrant K-12 students
nationally was almost $29 billion.
This represents about 6 percent of K-12 expenditures
nationally. In comparison, the Federal Government provided
about $41 billion for elementary and secondary education while
State and local governments provided about $200 billion each,
about 45 percent.
So when education is treated as a cost item in a single
period's fiscal analysis, the benefits, both tangible and
intrinsic, are not considered. Two seminal National Academy of
Science reports stress the importance of looking at the effects
over longer periods of time and including at least three
generations when calculating the effects of education.
Otherwise, analysis can misrepresent the ultimate benefit that
States and local communities gain from a more educated
immigrant workforce.
Fiscal impact analyses are incomplete if they include only
the cost of educating children and not the higher earnings and
tax paying capacity of those children in future years. Further,
there may be an even larger fiscal impact in the long-term for
not educating immigrants. A RAND study notes that higher levels
of education translate into lower public expenditures over an
individual's lifetime in the form of revenues saved in public
welfare, health and law enforcement programs, and revenues
earned from increased taxes and contributions to Medicare and
Social Security.
The majority of tax revenues paid by immigrants go to the
Federal Government, but the larger share of public service
costs related to immigration are at the State and local level.
Therefore, the fiscal balance of educating immigrants can be
positive at the Federal level but negative at the State and
local government level. Because immigration policy is a Federal
responsibility, the Federal Government does provide some
financial assistance to States and school districts, although
the amount of financial support does not cover the majority of
educational expenses.
In title 3 of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Federal
Government provides support to States to educate English
language needs as well as immigrant students. In 2007, this
included about $670 million to be distributed to States where
up to 15 percent could be used for immigrant education
programs. Of the top three States with immigrant students,
California could use up to $25 million, Texas $13 million and
New York $7 million. However, studies have shown that education
the students costs in the multiple billions of dollars to each
State.
Some would want to prevent immigrants from receiving a
public education because of their concern for the staggering
cost of social programs. However, it is critical that State and
local governments consider the benefits as well as the costs
for educating these students. Higher earnings are strongly
associated with increasing levels of educational attainment for
students, regardless of immigrant status.
It should also be noted that States also incur costs for
educating native-born students and do not see the benefit of
this investment until years later as well.
The skill level of current immigrants and their children
will be determined by the quality of their K-12 education
experience and by their ability to get a college education in
the future. If immigrants and their children experience rising
levels if educational attainment, their presence can be a
competitive advantage for States and localities.
The total fiscal impact of educating today's immigrants and
their children includes fiscal effects currently and to the
future, which are inferred but cannot be calculated in the
present.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Santiago follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deborah A. Santiago
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
Mr. Rector?
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT RECTOR, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, THE
HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. Rector. Thank you for having me back to talk about the
fiscal cost of low-skilled immigrants at the State and local
level.
As you know, I calculated the cost of that type of
immigrant, immigrants without a high school degree, for overall
Federal, State and local, finding that they received about
$30,000 a year in government benefits, paying in about $10,000
in taxes, and I counted every single tax that Mr. Gutierrez
could mention. I even got their lottery ticket purchases with a
very generous assessment.
And so you have a gap there of $19,500. And if you go down
to the State level, you get basically the same picture, about
$14,000 in benefits, about $9,000 in taxes; about a gap of
about $5,000. If those figures are correct, then low-skill
immigration constitutes an unfunded mandate on States and
localities.
Let's talk a little bit about methods, because we have
different studies here. The methods I use are the methods used
by the National Academy of Sciences. What I count are what the
National Academy of Sciences counted. I don't count defends, I
don't count interest, other things that have been charged
against me. I just count.
And how do I count? Well, it is real simple. I go to the
Census Bureau. If a low-skill immigrant says they got a food
stamp, I count the value of the food stamp. I don't have any
assumptions. I am just a counter. And it is very simple. You
count Social Security. You count Medicaid. You count public
education.
And one of the very strong points of the way I do this
thing is if you take my methods and you apply them to the
entire U.S. population, what happens? You get tax revenues that
exactly equal all the tax revenues in the United States and
expenditures that exactly equal all the expenditures in the
United States, because I didn't leave anything out, and most
studies leave things out selectively, and that drives what they
get.
What I find is exactly what the National Academy of
Sciences found, that there is certain types of people when you
bring them in the country they cost the taxpayer a fortune.
Let's start with, say, bringing in a 65-year-old and putting
him on SSI. Gosh, pretty hard to make that one a financial
winner for the taxpayer.
But also, when you bring in somebody that is a high school
dropout, there is no study that exists that shows that that
individual is going to pay more in taxes then they take out in
benefits or even come close to it.
If my figure of $30,000 a year is even remotely correct,
that exceeds the earnings in these households. How could they
possibly pay taxes? And the only way that you can make them
look fiscally attractive is to take large things off the books.
Let's take education off the books. Now, there is some credit
in doing that, because education for those kids does have a
kind of mitigating effect on future losses in the future.
But I would simply say, the National Academy of Sciences
used the same model I did, and they looked at those high school
dropout families and they looked at all of the generations that
would follow. They looked at it for 300 years. And even after
300 years, the fiscal loss of the first generation of high
school dropouts was so extreme, that the net present value
never came to zero.
Now, that is a pretty rotten investment. You invest money
and 300 years later you still haven't made one penny on your
investment. That is not a good deal and that is exactly what
this sort of situation is.
I do think that it does make sense that once an immigrant
is here, you do need to educate the kids to mitigate future
costs. It doesn't mean that child is going to be a net tax
contributor. It doesn't mean the child will make up the deficit
of the first generation, but you will mitigate those costs. But
that is a very different decision than deciding whether you are
going to admit millions of those low-skill families in the
first place.
And I would simply say, when we talk about positive
investments, that any investment that doesn't make back the
initial cost of the investment within 25 years is a rotten
investment, and there are many other investments we could make
besides bringing in low-skill immigrants and charging that cost
to the U.S. taxpayer. Taxpayers cold spend more on the
education of their own children. Taxpayers could invest in the
stock market. Any of those investments would have returns
infinitely larger multiples of return than bringing in
individuals who obviously, at least in the first and second
generation, are going to take much more out of the taxes than
they put in.
I would say that I would like to make some more comments in
the question period about amnesty, because the tax cost that I
am talking about here today are merely a drop in the bucket
compared to what you get when you grant amnesty and the right
to get into Social Security for illegal immigrants that are
here today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rector follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Rector
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, all of the panelists, for your
testimony.
We will now begin with questions for our panelists, and I
will begin.
Dr. Piehl, I found your testimony extremely interesting
because the testimony that you have given is very much at
variance with some of the casual things that are said about
crime and immigrants, and I was particularly interested in the
percentage of the population incarcerated.
Some individuals have suggested that a very large
percentage, 19 percent, 20 percent, of all prisoners in Federal
custody are non-citizens. In fact, one of our Committee Members
who is not here today suggested that. But your analysis
actually seems to indicate otherwise.
Can you explain the disparity? Is it people who are being
held for immigration violations or how do we explain this?
Ms. Piehl. I appreciate the question.
The statistic is often quoted in the public press as well,
that we have a very high proportion of Federal inmates who are
immigrants (who are ``non-citizens'' is the way the data are
collected). And that is in fact true. The data that I have from
the Bureau of Justice statistics that are included in my
testimony show that 19 percent of the population at any given
time in the Federal prison system are non-citizens.
There are two reasons that that figure is misleading,
though, as a synopsis of the larger issue of immigration and
crime. One is that violations of immigration law are, by
definition, as you know, violations of Federal law. So Federal
prison is the only place for people who violate immigration law
to be housed.
If you look at the broader population of prisoners, you
find the proportion is much lower. So if we are thinking about
State populations, you find that the percentage of non-citizens
is, I think, 6.4 percent. It is in the----
Ms. Lofgren. I was interested that in your study, the
population of California is 30 percent foreign born, but in the
State prison 10 percent foreign born.
Ms. Piehl. That is almost correct.
Among the California system, 10 percent are non-citizens,
but California, because its system is so large, contains 30
percent of all non-citizens who are incarcerated in State
prisons. So when you hear talk about the SCAAP provisions, for
example, that is showing you the disproportionate----
Ms. Lofgren. That is why the California delegation is for
SCAAP funding.
Ms. Piehl. Exactly.
Ms. Lofgren. I wonder if I could ask Dr. Singer, your
testimony was also very interesting and something that I hadn't
actually focused on, which is where are people going and has it
changed, and that may also have an impact on the discussion
that we are having nationally on immigration.
You mentioned the need to have actual coordinated efforts
to help integrate people and help immigrants become Americans.
We had a very interesting hearing on that yesterday. You said
that Canada does something. Can you give us just an insight
into what Canada does to help on that?
Ms. Singer. Sure.
Let me first start by saying that I think one of the
problems with not having a national coordinated strategic
system is that across places there is a lot of variation, and
this kind of fragmented approach to how we receive immigrants
and what kinds of things they are entitled to or how they are
served or what we expect of them can be very different in
places right next door to each other.
In Canada, part of their program is to give people services
and training right up front, so people are received in English
and/or French, since they have two national languages, are part
of the integration program. Referral services for community
organizations and local government services are also part of
that package.
Ms. Lofgren. I see that my time is about up. I did want to
thank Dr. Santiago also for being here. And I guess all I can
say is there is no greater bargain, no greater investment you
can make, than education. We all know that.
And although we look at our budgeting here and even put it
to one side from the immigration question, you know that it is
a cost but the financial rewards are reaped many, many fold for
those investments. And I thank you for your powerful testimony
to that impact.
I am interested, Mr. Rector, and I hope at some other time
that we will be able to--perhaps in my written questions I can
follow up with some of the issues and questions that I have.
But I know that the time is late.
You have been here all afternoon and I don't want to
violate the red light, so I will turn to the Ranking Member.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to take the first opportunity to thank all the
witnesses here. It means a lot to this country that people are
willing to come forward and spend your time, make this
commitment.
I am not going to be able to ask questions from everybody.
I would love to sit down and have dinner with you all, because
it would be fascinating to have this conversation engaged.
So I am going to first just focus on Dr. Piehl.
I hear your testimony and I view it as an academic
testimony. And I think you spent significant time in this. I
think it is a real investment.
Have you had an opportunity--I have a study in my hand. It
is an April GAO study that deals with criminal aliens that are
incarcerated. As you can see, I have looked this over a few
times.
Ms. Piehl. Is that from 2005?
Mr. King. Yes, 2005.
Ms. Piehl. Yes, I have it, but I haven't looked at it
recently.
Mr. King. In there, it says that the population of our
Federal penitentiaries that is criminal aliens is 27 percent.
And so we are only 8 percent off in the Federal part of this.
Do you know of any inmates in the Federal penitentiary that
are there because they were unlawfully present in the United
States? And I mean that because I think we need to weigh what
that means. And if they are, I am going to submit that it would
be because that was the violation that they could convict them
of. Probably they weren't just someone who was going to pick
tomatoes.
Ms. Piehl. There are people who are in there under that
crime, and it is quite possible that that was the crime of
conviction but not the original intent. Right.
Mr. King. And in your testimony, I am going a little bit
from memory here, you state that in conclusion there is no
empirical evidence that immigrants pose a particular crime
threat. Have you looked at the violent death rates in countries
that are south of our border, Mexico and thereon south? And are
you familiar with the relationship with violent crime and death
rates in those countries compared to that in the United States?
Ms. Piehl. Broadly.
Mr. King. And if I could stipulate some of those as from my
memory, U.S. violent death rate is 4.28 per 100,000 and
Mexico's is 13.2, so an approximately three-times higher
violent death rate there. It gets worse as we go south.
Honduras is nine-times. El Salvador is unpublished, presumably
because it is not a very flattering number. Columbia's is 15.4
times the violent death rate of the United States.
When you add to that that some of those people that are
coming here are bringing the $65 billion worth of illegal drugs
into the United States and I think you referenced one of the
points that is important demographically, that many of them are
young men who really carry with them society's pathologies. I
am just a man, I will say that.
And so when you add that all up, how can one conclude that
illegal immigrants represent a lower percentage of the crime?
And do you have anything in your studies that actually defines
the difference and studies illegal immigration as opposed to
legal immigration, because I think we do recognize that if you
are here under probation, so to speak, waiting to be legalized,
you are likely to be more in compliance with the law than if
you are here illegally in the shadows.
Ms. Piehl. Those are about eight or nine good questions. I
think I lost track.
So let me start with the last one. We don't really have
good data to study the questions that you ask and the questions
that I ask, so all of the studies that I reported on here are
ones that are doing the best method that they can with the data
that they have to bring evidence to bear on what are key,
quality questions.
One of the most important omissions is that we never have
data collected by status of immigrant, so we don't know whether
people are illegal or not, or how they came, you know, what
their visa status was.
Mr. King. We merge the two.
Ms. Piehl. So all the studies that I reported either
defined people based on country of birth or on citizenship
status. We are using both of those in different cases as----
Mr. King. You don't draw a distinction between legal and
illegal in any of the testimony that you have here. So it is
merged together and it is blurred.
Ms. Piehl. That is correct. And that is a gap in the
literature--there is no way to see filling that.
Mr. King. And I have found that as I go to the States and I
ask them their incarceration rates for criminal aliens versus
illegal aliens, lawfully presents, nation of origin, they
really don't have records that they can give me that give me
confidence that they are keeping them in a fashion that I can
count on. Would that be your experience, too?
Ms. Piehl. That would be correct. And you also would need
reliable population estimates in order to denominate those to
figure out relative risk.
Mr. King. You are an intellectual and honest lady.
I just turn to Mr. Rector for a comment of any gaps that
you might have heard in this testimony. Would you like a
comment quickly?
Mr. Rector. Well, I would just say that when you are really
looking at these costs, the most important thing you have to be
looking toward is the cost of amnesty. And with amnesty, what
you are actually talking about is taking about 9.3 million
individuals who are not currently eligible for Social Security
and Medicare and ensuring that they go into those systems.
Very few of the illegals are currently elderly, but if you
grant amnesty they are all going to stay here. If you move 9.3
million people with a normal mortality rate up into retirement,
the next cost of that to the taxpayers by the time they hit
retirement will be about $17,000 per person per year. About 9
million people times the time they would spend in retirement,
that is $2.5 trillion.
And that cost will come smashing into our fiscal coffers at
exactly the time that Social Security is already going
bankrupt.
There is no possible way out of this. How in the world can
you add in 9 million people, 60 percent of whom lack a high
school degree and have paid very little in taxes in, into these
types of systems, into Medicaid, into SSI, into Social
Security, without gargantuan costs in the future?
And I am just astonished at how irresponsible it is for the
Congress to be considering this type of amnesty without even
beginning to look at that type of future cost.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time is expired.
The gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the Chairwoman, and I thank the
Ranking Member.
We always do that, because we have had a series of hearings
and we hope that our appreciation reflects on the hard work of
their staff as well.
Let me thank the witnesses for their testimony and forgive
me for having to pose rapid-fire yes-no or brief answers in
order to help me understand and to frame the case of this
particular hearing.
Let me share one statement that finds itself in our
memorandum that indicates despite the overall benefits of
immigration to the Nation, most scholars tend to concur that
illegal immigration can have deliterious effects on States and
localities. It is those effects that we will address during
this hearing.
I just want to focus on those sentences and begin my line
of questioning.
First of all, I am from Houston, Texas, and Harris County
has a $1.5 million SCAAP grant that deals with reimbursement
for the services or needs of those in our population that are
undocumented. There is no doubt that our hospitals, our
schools, our other social services can stand more resources.
Period. They certainly can stand more resources for those of us
who are large States that have a large population of
undocumented individuals.
Interestingly enough, the population of naysayers in Harris
County is very small. There have been a number of elected
officials who tried to do the blame game and certainly we have
had a number of amendments about police arresting those who are
undocumented. We have some issues with the jail. But we have
not taken to the street to suggest that there is not also a
positive to many who happen to be undocumented, who happen to
be hardworking, fulfilling various needs in our community,
whether it be if you will low-skilled to other skills, and
young people in our schools who are striving for the American
dream.
So let me just say that the frame is illegal immigration
can be deliterious, but if we fix the system and begin to
document so that individuals are out of the shadows, are paying
taxes, may even be able to pay for some sort of hybrid health
care, may be eligible for S-CHIP, is that not a better
approach?
Dr. Singer?
Ms. Singer. Well, I think you hit on all of the key points
in terms of this being an immediate need for some places where
there is a new influx of immigrants, but it is also a long-term
issue in a place like Houston, that is used to bringing in
people.
Ms. Jackson Lee. But will documentation for those who are
now undocumented help to move us toward fixing the problem,
because they become contributing, I hope? This is on the--I am
not approaching the criminal issue right now. I am approaching
those that may be using our social services. And my time is
limited, so I am trying to get a quick yes or no.
Ms. Singer. I think with legal status, we have seen in the
past in the last program, 1986, that workers were able to
experience some economic mobility because they were able to
come out of the shadows, learn English and move up in their
jobs.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Dr. Piehl, is that correct? Yes or no on
providing some pathway to citizenship to cure part of this
deliterious impact.
Ms. Piehl. It may, but my testimony doesn't directly
address that point.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Dr. Santiago?
Ms. Santiago. Yes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Dr. Rector, you keep harping on amnesty. All of the bills
that I have seen, all of the thought that I have seen has been
a methodical structure of compensation, fines and other
penalties or other hurdles. That is not amnesty. And the
question I would ask, when you say that this has a negative
impact on our economy, we have a large agricultural industry.
Farm workers I consider a very respectable, if you will,
profession or need.
What substitute would you have for those who happen to be
utilized--and again, this not denigrating, because I would open
those opportunities for any American who chooses to have it. I
don't think any farm denies them. But what substitute would you
have for that and what would you respond to the constant
refrain that we try to explain to those who keep using the term
``amnesty'' that this is not the amnesty of 1986, when you have
a series of penalties and a very extensive wait? In fact, I
understand the Senate bill has probably projected the wait to
be some 13 years, the agreement that has just been put forward.
Mr. Rector. Well, I think that you have to really look and
say, okay, now, agriculture might be an area where a guest
worker program might be viable. But if you allow the guest
worker to come in with a family and obtain citizenship, then
that is going to impose about an $18,000 a year cost on the
taxpayers in any given State. How are you going to pay for
that? You are going to have to pay for that in some way. And
you have to take that in as a rational consideration.
I would say when you grant amnesty, or grant citizenship,
whatever you want to call it, the costs obviously go up much
farther than the taxes, because there is a little bit of off-
the-books work here for illegals. So they are not paying Social
Security tax. But that, for these workers, is going to be
$1,000 or $2,000 a year that you would ante in if they started
paying Social Security tax.
I have costed this out very carefully. On the other hand,
if you start making them eligible for, as you said, S-CHIP,
food stamps, public housing and on and on and on, the cost of
that are extraordinarily large, and indeed I mean the fines in
these bills are so trivial in comparison to the additional
costs and benefits, they are not even a grounding error.
Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time----
Ms. Jackson Lee. My time has ended.
Let me just say, Chairwoman, Mr. Rector's history is, as he
has put forward, is one interpretation. My interpretation of
the thousands upon thousands of immigrant families who came in,
documented or undocumented, in the 1900's, who became
contributors to society, even if they had to take a step on the
social service step in the early part of their history, they
did ultimately become contributors. And that is what we can
look for, for a documented system that documents people and
regularizes their existence.
I yield back to the gentlelady.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses for sticking
with us here this afternoon, for your patience with us for
being an hour late because of the Committee markup and our
vote.
Without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to
submit additional written questions for you, which we will
forward. And we ask that if you are able to respond as promptly
as possible, we would sure appreciate it.
Without objection, the record will remain open for 5
legislative days for the submission of any other additional
materials.
I think the testimony today has been very helpful,
illuminating some of these issues on comprehensive immigration
reform. I know it will prove valuable to us as we move forward
these next 6 weeks or so when we hope to actually come to a
conclusion on these major challenges that face us.
I would like to extend an invitation to anyone within
hearing to attend our next hearing on comprehensive immigration
reform, which will be tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. in the room
downstairs, Room 2141, during which we will explore the future
of undocumented students and immigration reform.
And on next Tuesday at 2 in the afternoon we will hear
prospectives on immigration reform from faith-based and
immigrant communities, and that will also be in Room 2141.
With that, my thanks again for your donation of your time
and your wisdom.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:53 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve King, a Representative in
Congress from the State of Iowa, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International
Law
Madame Chair, thank you for holding this hearing.
While immigration policy enforcement is supposed to be a federal
responsibility, much of the burden caused by mass immigration falls on
the states and localities in which the immigrants, legal and illegal,
settle.
This Subcommittee and the Full Committee have examined the effects
of immigration on states and localities on a number of occasions. Most
recently, last August in San Diego, CA, the Full Committee explored the
impacts that the Senate-passed Reid-Kennedy amnesty bill would have on
American communities at the state and local level.
In San Diego we heard testimony that Los Angeles County is being
buried with the healthcare, education, criminal justice and other costs
associated with illegal immigration.
We also heard from a witness from the University of Arizona Medical
Center in Tucson who said that providing care to the uninsured,
uncompensated poor and foreign nationals cost the hospital $30 million
in 2006 and $27 million in 2005. Few U.S. hospitals can continue to
provide adequate care for American citizens, with such an enormous
burden.
More than a decade ago, at a hearing on this same topic, Michael
Fix of the Urban Institute told the Judiciary Committee that ``[T]here
is a broad consensus in the research that the fiscal impacts of illegal
immigrants--that is, their impacts on local, state and federal
taxpayers--are negative, generating a net deficit when they are
aggregated across all levels of government. . . .''
Because of these burdens and the frustrations that recent
Administrations, including the present one, have essentially abdicated
enforcement of immigration law, many States and localities have decided
to try to fix the problems themselves. They have considered and often
enacted legislation aimed at reducing the negative impacts of illegal
immigration.
According to the National Conference of States Legislatures, as of
April 13, 2007, 1,169 immigration-related bills and resolutions have
been introduced in legislature in all 50 states. That is more that
twice the number introduced last year. The bills touch on every
immigration-related policy from receipt of public assistance, to
education to voting.
For instance, just last week the Oklahoma Governor sign into law a
bill that requires state and local agencies to verify the citizenship
and immigration status of applicants for state or local benefits.
In March, the Idaho Governor signed into law a bill that requires
the verification of lawful presence in the United States in order to
receive public benefits.
And this week residents of Farmer's Branch, TX, a Dallas suburb,
recently approved, by 68 percent to 32 percent, an ordinance that
requires apartment managers to verify that renters are U.S. citizens or
legal immigrants before leasing to the property.
The cost of educating the children of illegal immigrants, whether
the child is U.S. born or foreign born, is perhaps the largest, both
fiscal and societal, cost at the state and local level. Not only are
schools overcrowded because of illegal immigrants, but since K-12
education is federally mandated, states and localities have no choice
but to pay the required fiscal costs. Those costs equal $7,700 per
student per year--an amount that most illegal immigrants do not cover
with the taxes they pay.
Uncompensated health care for illegal immigrant families is also a
huge burden on states and localities. According to the U.S.-Mexico
Southwest Border Counties Coalition, hospitals in the southwest border
counties of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California alone incur
costs of $190 million per year for uncompensated emergency medical
treatment of illegal immigrants. Many hospitals around the country have
already been forced to stop providing medical specialties, like trauma
care, or have closed down completely because of the budgetary strains.
And the law enforcement costs of illegal immigration are also
substantial and increasing. According to the GAO, 28 percent of inmates
in Federal and state prisons are criminal aliens. In the state of New
York, it is estimated that the uncompensated cost of incarcerating
criminal aliens is $165 million a year--money that I am sure New York
taxpayers would like not to have to spend.
I am pleased that we are exploring this issue today and note the
importance of creating immigration policy that is good for the American
people--not just certain interest groups.
And before I close, I would just like to note that Robert Rector,
Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is one of the
witnesses today. Not only will he be testifying as to the fiscal
impacts of immigration on states and localities, but he is more than
willing to address any concerns Members of the Subcommittee may have
about his recent research, such as those expressed in a recent
Immigration Policy Center brief.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member,
Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security,
and International Law
Today we continue these series of hearings dealing with
comprehensive immigration reform. This subcommittee previously dealt
with the shortfalls of the 1986 and 1996 immigration reforms, the
difficulties employers face with employment verification and ways to
improve the employment verification system. On Tuesday May 1, 2007 we
explored the point system that the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand utilize, and on May 3, 2007 the focus of the discussion
was on the U.S. economy, U.S. workers and immigration reform. Last week
we took a look at another controversial aspect of the immigration
debate, family based immigration. Today we continue the vital task of
eliminating the myths and seeking the truth. Yesterday's hearing dealt
with probably the most crucial aspect underlying the immigration
debate, an immigrant's ability to integrate, and assimilate into
American society. Today we will tackle another pressing topic, the
practical issue of the impact of immigration on States and Localities.
While many will argue that illegal immigration is a national
epidemic, truth of the matter is that our local municipalities are the
entities that have to address the needs of not only the undocumented
population, but also there documented immigrants, and United States
Citizens. Plenty of individuals in the anti-immigrant camp argue that
these groups of undocumented individuals are placing a strain on the
local hospitals, public schools, and social service programs. I can
recall a recent CNN news report that documented children who live in
Mexico, but attend school here in the States. Some will use this
anecdotal evidence to suggest that it is a microcosm of the type of
strain illegal immigrants place on our Localities, arguing that the
parents of these kids do not pay property taxes and therefore their
kids should not receive the benefit of an American public school
education, despite the fact that these children are United States
Citizen.
As I just mentioned many in the anti-immigrant camp will argue that
the same strain is being placed on our hospitals, jails, and social
services. They complain of overcrowded emergency rooms, and limited
access to social service programs due to the influx of illegal
immigrants. Therefore, this hearing like all our previous hearings will
seek to debunk the myths associated with illegal immigration, and
expose the facts about the impact that illegal immigration has on
States and Localities. Allow me to share a sample of those facts with
you. With regards to the strain on local jails, the Harris County Jail
does receive some federal assistance in the form of a $1.5 million
dollar SCAPP grant to help house illegal immigrants. That is not to say
that the Harris County Jail does not suffer from overcrowding, the
record is established on that fact, but it is not the result of an
influx of illegal immigrants.
I believe that through the thoughtful and insightful testimony from
the previous panels of experts, we have established a solid foundation
of facts. The primary fact is that this undocumented population and
this new wave of immigrants have benefited the United States economy.
Their presence generates small businesses, which generates local tax
revenue. The creation of low-skilled jobs creates the need for high
skill jobs, and the task that low skilled workers perform, (i.e.,
landscaping, service industry jobs) makes life easier for high-skilled
workers and allows them to work more efficiently. In all I believe that
we can agree on the positive impact that immigrants have on our Nation
as a whole, culturally and financially, however a closer look at the
impact on localities does deserve particular attention because these
entities do not have the resources that the federal government has.
There are costs to taxpayers that result from illegal immigration.
Estimates and methodologies vary as to those costs, but most scholars
agree that illegal immigrants do create certain fiscal costs. State and
local governments are frustrated by the costs incurred locally and the
lack of federal government action to address these problems through
immigration reform. As of April 13, 2007, state legislators in all of
the 50 states had introduced at least 1169 bills and resolutions
related to immigration or immigrants and refugees. This is more than
twice the total number of introduced bills (570) in 2006. In fact in my
home state of Texas, a town called Farmers Branch just enacted a law
that made it illegal for landlords to rent to illegal immigrants. Given
the extensive testimony that we heard about the problems that
sophisticated corporate employers such as the Swift Meat Packing Co.
have when they try to verify an employee's status, can you imagine the
trouble that an individual landlord will have. If a federal system like
the Basic Pilot Program is riddled with problems, and subject to fraud,
so will the individual landlord. Reactionary policies and laws such as
the one passed by the Farmers Branch city council is not the answer.
I look forward to the testimony from today's witnesses.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Janet Napolitano, Governor of the
State of Arizona, on ``Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Impact of
Immigration on States and Localities,'' submitted by the Honorable Zoe
Lofgren, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship,
Refugees, Border Security, and International Law
``The Fiscal Impact of Immigration Reform: The Real Story,'' by Daniel
Griswold, Director, Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute,
May 21, 2007
Letter from the National Association of Counties and the
National League of Cities
Prepared Statement of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve DeBenedittis, Mayor,
the Town of Herndon, VA
``Dollars without Sense: Underestimating the Value of Less-Educated
Workers,'' by Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. and Benjamin Johnson, a policy
brief of the Immigration Policy Center