Hearing focuses on costs linked to immigration

Officials cite illegals' effect on schools, criminal justice

Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, August 31, 2006

A litany of testimony at a Senate Budget Committee hearing in Aurora Wednesday painted a bleak picture of the financial burden to Colorado taxpayers because of illegal immigrants.

Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer and three law enforcement officials testified that illegal immigrants cost millions of dollars a year to educate and to process through the criminal justice system.

Prosecutors from Weld and Mesa counties complained that the state's methamphetamine epidemic is being fueled by drugs produced by Mexican gangs, mostly from below the border.

And others criticized federal mandates requiring governments to provide certain services regardless of a person's immigration status.

They urged Republican Sen. Wayne Allard, who presided over the hearing and was the sole member of the budget committee to attend, to persuade Congress to secure the borders and fix a system that allows illegal immigrants to access taxpayer- funded programs.

The hearing was part of a series around the country on illegal immigration - a hotbed election year issue that has produced competing bills in Congress.

Republicans say the hearings are meant to take the pulse of the country. Critics charge that the Aurora hearing and others this summer were partisan attempts to boost the Republican Party and stir up opposition to Democrat-supported reform measures that take a softer approach to the immigration problem.

The hearing was aimed at the costs of illegal immigration policies on local, state and federal governments. It did not include any prominent local Democrats and did not address other aspects of the immigration debate, including the contributions illegal immigrants make to society and how to stop the demand for low-wage workers.

Irma Perez, 40, of Denver, said the hearing lacked information on what immigrants contribute to the country.

"Instead of having statistics that compared what we get vs. what we give, they only brought up what we get," she said in Spanish. "If I buy a juice, I pay taxes. In my work, they take taxes."

Allard called the accusations "a lot of bunk." He said he could not allow everyone to testify, adding that he was collecting written testimony from people who could not address the committee.

The hearing attracted about 300 people to the Aurora Municipal Center. Gov. Bill Owens was the first of nine people to testify. Like most of the others, Owens said precise figures on the cost of illegal immigration are difficult to calculate.

Nevertheless, Owens estimated that more than 950 illegal immigrants are housed in Colorado prisons and will be released to the custody of immigration officials. He said those inmates cost taxpayers more than $25 million a year.

Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for the poor, is another hard-hit area, Owens said. He said 41 percent of all Medicaid-paid births in Colorado are for noncitizens, most of whom are in the country illegally. Those births cost more than $30 million a year.

"These are real numbers, and real costs, to taxpayers," Owens said. "Illegal immigration is one of the driving forces involved in these costs and unless we stem the tide those costs will escalate."

Owens also cited the state's new landmark immigration law, HB 1023, which seeks to deny nonmandated government services to illegal immigrants.

He said Department of Revenue officials found 1,615 applicants for state IDs who couldn't produce the required identification documents, and that most, if not all, were presumed to be illegal immigrants.

The Department of Revenue also found 125 cases where applicants used fraudulent identification and referred those cases to federal immigration authorities, Owens said. The agency has also encountered a high number of questionable birth certificates and U.S. passports.

Tauer, the Aurora mayor, said his city pays more than $5 million a year for police and fire services to illegal immigrants, though he didn't say how he came up with that figure.

The K-12 education costs also are steep, he said. He made a conservative estimate that 25 percent of the English as a second language students in Aurora schools are illegal immigrants - costing taxpayers more than $20 million.

Hospital emergency room care for illegal immigrants at two Aurora hospitals costs almost $10 million a year, he said.

Tauer acknowledged that illegal immigrants contribute by paying taxes. But the tax revenue, he said, does not offset the costs.

"This is the No. 1 issue that citizens in Colorado are concerned about," he said.

Fred Elbel, co-chair of Defend Colorado Now, complained that his group's recent study indicating that illegal immigrants cost Colorado taxpayers $1 billion was not entered into the hearing's record. Allard did, however, enter into the record another study, done by the Bell Policy Center in Denver, which puts that cost at $225 million.

Elbel conceded that the hearing was useful, however, because it showed that people are "overwhelmingly concerned about the cost of unbridled immigration."

A group of local pro-immigrant activists protested outside the municipal center as did a handful of anti-illegal immigrant demonstrators.

Many of the pro-immigrant activists participated in their own immigration hearing Tuesday night in Denver, which presented sympathetic portraits of immigrants and the troubles they face in the current heated political climate.

Voices from the hearing

• "Today is a unique opportunity to hear from experts in the field as well as state and local officials who are on the front lines of immigration policy."

U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.

• "Senator Allard's immigration hearing is nothing more than an obvious attempt to use taxpayer money to help his party."

Congressman Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs

• "The actual costs of low-skilled immigrants are much more than anyone estimates."

Robert Rector, senior research fellow, The Heritage Foundation

• "The claims that (illegal immigrants) are here to take away jobs and benefits, it's pure hogwash."

Tim Correa, owner of Aztlan Theater on Santa Fe Drive, Denver.

• "The problems associated with illegal immigration are not insurmountable. But finding and enacting the solutions will require a partnership between the federal government and the states."

Gov. Bill Owens

• "This is the number one issue that citizens of Colorado are concerned about."

Ed Tauer, Aurora mayor

kimm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2361