David J. Silva: Brown should pick on illegal immigrants, not state workers
Gov. Jerry Brown is upset over the cost of wages and benefits for California’s state workers; he feels they are costing the state too much money. According to California’s controller, the cost to the state was $23.6 billion in 2016. These are hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding American citizens.
On the other hand, he is not at all concerned by the high cost of supporting illegal immigrants in California. In 2016, this cost to the state was $23.0 billion, while the state and local taxes they paid was only $3.5 billion. They comprise 8 percent of the population, but cost 15 percent of the state’s budget. For every 100,000 illegals, there are 94 in prison, compared to 74 citizens per 100,000. If a state employee is caught committing a crime at his job, or selling drugs, he would be fired and probably arrested, but Gov. Brown believes in protecting illegals who commit crimes and refuses to hold them for ICE. It is time for Gov. Brown and his friends to leave our state workers alone and stop stealing money from hard-working taxpayers to support illegal immigrants, we need to spend this money on our citizens and infrastructure.
David J. Silva, Los Banos
Editor’s note: The above information concerning the costs associated with undocumented immigration came from a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that opposes virtually all legal and illegal immigration. The analysis included costs associated with educating and providing health care for an estimated 4.2 million U.S. citizens born of unauthorized immigrants. According to the Pew Research Center, there are 2.35 million undocumented immigrants living in California, or roughly 6 percent of the population (not 8 percent). Using FAIR’s disputed cost estimate, that represents 12 percent of California’s $183 billion budget (not 15 percent). Under the recently signed SB54, federal agents will have access to all imprisoned felons upon request.
This story was originally published January 3, 2018 at 5:02 PM with the headline "David J. Silva: Brown should pick on illegal immigrants, not state workers."