Alyson Straub I didn't really want to share my entire paper, so instead I thought that I would share some interesting things that I read from various sources. State Population (2004 CB estimate) 35,893,799 Foreign-Born Population 9,400,000 (26.5%) Illegal Resident Population 2,209,001 Traffic in California cost $21 billion a year in lost time and wasted fuel, according to the Texas Transportation Institute California was once home to five MILLION acres of wetlands, today only 454,000 acres survive-a loss of over 90 percent Santa Ana, has the nation’s second highest percentage of immigrant residents, twenty percent of housing falls below city codes One third of the patients treated by the L.A. county health system each year are illegal aliens. In 2002, the county spent $350 million providing health care to illegal aliens, according to the Department of Health Services. Officials said that if that money had been available, the county could have avoided the closure of 16 health clinics and possibly two hospitals, as well as cuts in services Scripps Memorial Hospital in Chula Vista estimates that about ¼ of patients who are uninsured and don’t pay their bills are illegal aliens. The hospital loses $7 million to $10 million in uncompensated costs Pioneers Memorial Hospital in El Centro, California lost over $1.5 million treating illegal immigrants in 2001 San Diego Country paid 50.3 million during 1999 for criminal justice services and medical care related to illegal aliens. Imperial County spent 5.4 million on illegal aliens in 1999 California state authorities requested compensation of $600 million from the federal government in 1999 fiscal year for the incarceration of illegal aliens in state and local jails and prisons, but received only $240 million in compensation, leaving $360 million in uncompensated costs to be borne by state taxpayers. Illegal immigrants are at least as valued as native-born American citizens. Indeed, illegal immigrants living in California can go to the state’s tax-supported universities, paying less than native-born Americans from neighboring Oregon or Nevada are charged.” Immigrants who entered the United States after 1980 had a 25 percent wage disadvantage at the time of entry A rise in crowded housing directly correlates to an increase in the number of foreign born within a given area In Los Angeles, where more than forty percent of residents were born in another country, 22 percent live at the poverty level. Nearly one third of the city’s residents say they can’t speak English “very well” By the mid-1990’s it was reported that California contained eight million immigrants, nearly one-forth of California’s residents, and twenty eight percent, roughly one-third, of all the nation’s immigrants. Immigration in the 1970’s lowered the wages of high school dropouts by between ten and sixteen percent annually The labor market consequences of immigration generate a net benefit for the entire native-born population. The annual net gain from immigration is small (less that 0.1 percent of gross domestic product), amounting to less than $10 billion a year for the entire native-born population Illegal Immigration Costs California $10.5 billion annually California State’s ‘cheap labor’ costs the average household $1,183 a year. In 1994 Proposition 187, California voters banned the use of tax money to provide non-emergency care to illegal aliens, but a U.S. District Judge overturned the ballot proposition in 1999. Since then, California has been held responsible for providing both legal and illegal immigrants with Emergency Medicaid, pre-natal care, and nursing home care In the last decade, sixty California emergency rooms have closed. California hospital losses totaled $390 million in 2001, up from $325 million in 2000 and $316 million in 1999 California spends approximately $7 billion a year to school the children of illegal immigrants who now constitute 15% of the student body, and approximately 2.2 billion dollars annually to educate illegal immigrant students in grades K-12. This is enough to pay the salaries of 41,754 teachers, which accounts for roughly 14% of California’s teachers Only one in three California residents can afford an average priced home of more than 250,000 dollars. California workers who earn minimum wage must work 126 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area’s fair market rent