Grassroots Rally Team

California Spends $21 Billion Annually to Support Undocumented Immigrants

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich reveals the cost of local illegal immigration, and the figures are staggering. When combining the numbers for the CalWORKs program ($22 million) and food stamps assistance ($31 million), the sum totals a confounding $53 million paid to support American-born children of illegal aliens.

Stepping back a bit further, Los Angeles County Supervisor Antonovich explains that 22 percent of CalWORKs and food stamp benefits within the county go to undocumented immigrants. Additional costs of approximately $500 million for health care, $550 million for public safety and $570 million for CalWORKs and food stamps bring the grand total to an estimated $1.6 billion.

This is not the first time that Antonovich sounds the alarm bells for the county of Los Angeles. In May 2010 his office issued a similar news release. It outlined that the cost for the support of illegal immigrants' children stood at $52 million while overall the cost for illegal immigrants -- borne by L.A. County taxpayers -- exceeded $1 billion. It is clear that his warnings fell on deaf ears.

Of course, illegal immigration is not a social issue endemic only to Los Angeles County. Undocumented immigrants present a fiscal drain for taxpayers all over the Golden State. In fact, nationwide California leads the pack with an expenditure of $21 billion on illegal aliens (compare this to the $84.2 billion figure that denotes the statewide cost for undocumented workers across the nation)...

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