Well, I think I know one guy who might not vote for Pat McDonough should he decide to run for governor. But Pat’s vowing to crack down on illegal aliens and he’s got numbers backing him up on their negative economic impact:
Maryland has the unfortunate designation of being a “sanctuary state.” According to Homeland Security, the definition of a “sanctuary state” is a place where the elected leadership, such as the Governor and General Assembly, provide programs that benefit illegal aliens. Policies such as access to drivers’ licenses, in-state tuition discounts, health benefits, and a general welcoming attitude contributes to a inducement encouraging illegals to flood into our state. I have proclaimed for years the large number of illegals residing in Maryland, more than 300,000 (and continuously increasing) is costing taxpayers a huge amount of money.
Now a new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (F.A.I.R.) has exposed the fact that illegals are costing Maryland citizens more than 1.4 billion dollars annually. This figure is probably low because certain other benefits were not included and the study is based upon a population figure of only 250,000 illegals. The study was just released this month. The costs imposed on citizens during these difficult economic times and budget deficits become even more of a burden because programs for education, seniors, and other necessary services are being drastically cut. The annual fiscal burden amounts to approximately $790 per Maryland household.
The cost to educate an estimated 80,000 children of illegal aliens in pre-K through Grade 12 in public schools is about $966 million annually. An additional amount of nearly $250 million dollars is spent providing special English instruction. In addition, illegals’ medical costs are 167 million per year.
The impact of crime, gangs, and drugs is increasing and becoming a growing problem for law enforcement beyond just the cost factor. Dangerous gangs, such as MS13 and the Latin Kings, are proliferating in many of Maryland’s counties, spreading costs to local government. Federal strike forces and Homeland Security efforts are burdening Marylanders through their federal tax obligations. The cost of incarcerating illegal criminals amounts to about 29 million dollars a year. This figure does not include related law enforcement and judicial expenses for the monetary cost of the crime that caused the incarceration. Of course, the pain and suffering and in some cases, murder, of American citizens has resulted from this explosion of illegal alien criminals.
Finally, accurate figures are being revealed to a deserving public. The Governor, illegal alien advocates, and the media, as expected, are ignoring the study. A study revealing hate crimes against illegals would be on the front page and a top priority for action by Governor O’Malley. The double standard and hypocrisy are evident. Censorship by omission is a clever tool often used by the liberal media in Maryland.
Mainstream Marylanders with common sense know the extent of this problem related to jobs, healthcare, taxes, crime, and other burdens. They cannot understand why politicians ignore the problem and even help make it worse. During my past 8 years of service in the General Assembly, I have introduced numerous pieces of legislation dedicated to fighting this invasion of our state. The Governor and General Assembly leaders have defeated these proposals. I characterize these politicians as “lawmakers who support lawbreakers.” Once again, in the 2010 session of the Maryland General Assembly, I will continue the battle for “citizen’s rights” with new legislation. Should I run for Governor and if elected, I pledge to use the authority of that high office to guarantee that Maryland will no longer be a “sanctuary state.”
Of course, Pat is being quite coy about whether he’s running or not. Maybe he’s waiting to see if that 800-pound elephant (with the initials RLE) is going to run himself, but that’s a topic for another post.
Nor is this going to endear him to the Chamber of Commerce crowd who looks the other way at the legality of workers, just knowing that they’ll work for far less than domestic (or unionized) labor.
But there were steps, done with kicking and screaming by most General Assembly Democrats, to cut back on one aspect of McDonough’s complaint last year – drivers’ licenses. The biggest drawbacks of that bill were that it set up a two-tiered system for drivers’ licenses (with only one tier compliant with federal regulations) and it doesn’t fully take effect until 2015.
The economy is helping to address the problem as well, as some illegals have headed back because even they can’t find work. But still others are here simply to extend criminal enterprises and that’s the area the crackdown needs to be most effective. Most people wouldn’t point to Mexico as the shining example of a safe country and that’s the sort of crime problem which could be headed our way if left unchecked.
Needless to say, though, most of McDonough’s legislative agenda won’t make it through, either remaining in the desk drawer of the particular committee chairman or soundly defeated in a fairly party-line vote on the floor. The best solution to that problem is ending the nearly 150 year run of Democrats controlling the General Assembly; sadly, the prospects of that happening anytime soon are fairly dim.
I assume you are alluding to me in your first sentence, and you’re right. Of course, I won’t be alone. If Pat does run and get the nomination (which I find highly unlikely), I’d be surprised if he gets over 35% of the vote. Leaving aside the economic and moral arguments against his position, attacking illegal immigrants just isn’t a winning issue. I seem to recall seeing something about in either 2006 or 2008 (or both), when a hard-line anti-illegal immigration candidate ran against a non-hard-line candidate, the hard-liner lost in almost every case, but I can’t find the story.
However, even if I’m misremembering, in Maryland most voters don’t share Pat’s views or, if they do, they don’t think illegal immigrants are the #1 problem facing our state. Furthermore, there are a lot of people like me out there, and guys like Pat make us very uncomfortable with the Republican Party. Having lived in DC and being friends with a lot of thirtysomethings in that area, it’s clear to me that the GOP has a chance to reach these voters. However, they are turned off by the GOP’s current image, which is one of hating gays, foreigners, and anyone with a college degree. They would never vote for a guy like Pat because they perceive his kind as ignorant bigots. Whether this is true or not is not the case, since in politics perception is reality. And, of course, he would receive very little of the growing Latino vote.
If the GOP is to win a statewide race in Maryland (or, in fact, win around the nation), it has to appeal to the college educated, blacks, and Latinos, as well as conservative stalwarts. Nominating someone like Pat McDonough as our gubernatorial candidate would doom the state GOP to another year of electoral defeat.
And, of course, I also think the “study” he talks about is incredibly flawed, but that’s an issue for another day.
Yep, you’re the guy. I knew you’d chime in.
Personally I don’t think Pat would run and if he did I doubt he’d win the primary – Larry Hogan has quite a head start on the campaign.
All that aside, it would be interesting to see what the study entails – and that’s part of a future post.
You’ve been baiting me for a week with illegal immigrant posts, so I figured I’d give in and finally respond. 🙂
As far as the study, here’s a partial rebuttal: http://immigrationimpact.com/2009/12/04/fair-blames-immigrants-and-children-for-maryland%E2%80%99s-budget-deficit/.
The problem with many of these studies is that they are ideologically-driven. FAIR isn’t going to put out anything that is in any way fair to illegal immigrants. If it produces a study, it’s going to show illegal immigrants hurt the US. Finding good, unbiased data on this subject is difficult. Here’s something from 1994: http://migration.ucdavis.edu/MN/more.php?id=298_0_2_0.
A CBO report from 2007 looked at the impact of illegal immigrants on state and local expenditures and finds that they do cost state local governments money and that their taxes don’t offset their costs, but that they only impose a small burden: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8711/12-6-Immigration.pdf. This study doesn’t include taxes paid to the federal government.
My view is not that illegal immigration doesn’t cause problems. It’s that the problems caused by them can be met in better ways than by the ways Pat and others suggest. And, of course, deporting them all is completely unrealistic. Once those like Pat acknowledge that the immigration system needs reformed to allow more low-skilled workers in, that we need a workable guest worker program, and that large-scale deportation is unrealistic, then the ground would be set for really addressing the problems caused by illegal immigration. But as long as the only answer is “deport ’em all!” then there is no common ground on which to base a revised immigration policy.
You’re certainly not alone Marc – I’d actually thought there was a chance it was referring to me (but figured it was probably you).
I’ve started skimming through the study and have found a particularly problematic flaw I’ll be addressing in a post of my own, hopefully up sometime tonight or tomorrow.