[Vision2020] Sali Seeks to Delay Mexican Consulate

[Andreas Schou]

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:11 PM, Donovan Arnold
<donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Andreas,
>
> Illegal Laborers can get emergency food stamps, and food stamps for their
> children.

This is incorrect. Actually, even most legal immigrants don't qualify
for food stamps. Only US citizens, asylees, people whose deportation
has been indefinitely suspended (making them de facto American
citizens), legal permanent residents who've worked for 10 years, LPR
veterans, and children of LPRs under 18 qualify for food stamps.

> Illegal Laborers can get Driver's Licenses, yes in California, where most of
> them live, then drive in Idaho legally.

This is nonsense. Most illegal immigrant laborers winter in south
Texas and Arizona. And, actually, I was wrong: the California law
allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses was repealed
in 2004.

> Illegal Laborers can get Private Scholarships for Education

What private people do with their money is their own business. This is
not a 'government benefit'.

> Illegal Laborers do get medical assistance and emergency services

Illegal immigrants cannot receive Medicaid, Medicare, or CHIP, unless
the state has decided to offer those services out of their own tax
rolls. To my knowledge, no state does so.

> Illegal Laborers do get free public education (The alternative being not no
> education, but education in Mexico)

The alternative being a perpetual generational underclass of itinerant
farmworkers.

> Illegal Laborers do get low income housing which is implemented through
> local governments.

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. But this is basically
nonsense, too. Federal housing grants are handed out to state housing
agencies, which (usually, but not in Idaho) pass them to municipal
housing authorities. The largest programs have citizenship
restrictions; the grants that could potentially benefit illegal
immigrants are those that subsidize private construction of affordable
housing, rather than those that provide site- or voucher-based grants
to private individuals.

A quick run-down of programs:

Illegal immigrants are ineligible for Section 8 benefits -- Section 8
being the largest low-income housing program in the United States.
They are likewise ineligible for HOPWA (Housing for People With AIDS)
funds and SHP funds (transitional housing). They may receive ESG
(emergency shelter grant) funds, but that's basically a homeless
shelter. The only program that they can benefit from is AHP
(Affordable Housing Program). But that's only because AHP is
administered by private landlord -- the government only checks in to
see that the rent is within the federal guidelines.

> Illegal Laborers get most of their entitlements any US citizens gets.

You mean Medicare and Social Security? Illegal immigrants are required
to pay taxes for both, but receive neither.

> Illegal Laborers do get bank accounts through private banks and credit
> unions, who are protected by US taxpayers and insured by US taxpayers.

As can non-US citizens living anywhere in the world.

> All this made possible because of ID cards from Consulates. If they couldn't
> get a job, cash a check, rent an apartment, drive, eat, get medical care,
> they would not stay here. It is that simple.

Check your facts. Your entire post was utter bollocks.

-- ACS