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PROOF:
[Congressional Record: May 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
GOVERNMENT SERVICES AND ILLEGAL ALIENS
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HON. DANA ROHRABACHER
of california
in the house of representatives
Monday, May 23, 1994
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the cost of providing Government
services to illegal aliens has reached a boiling point. At a time when
our Nation is trillions of dollars in debt and many Americans are
struggling to make ends meet, we are giving away billions of dollars to
people who have broken the law by being here. The following article,
``Welfare for Illegal Aliens?'' which appears in the June 1994 edition
of Reader's Digest, clearly shows the magnitude of this problem. I urge
all my colleagues to read this informative article.
[From Reader's Digest, June 1994]
Welfare For Illegal Aliens?
(By Randy Fitzgerald)
Soon after David Sossaman began work as an investigator for
the San Diego County welfare-fraud unit, he was told by a
colleague that thousands of Mexican citizens were crossing
into Southern California to collect U.S. welfare benefits.
Disbelieving but curious, he drove to the Chula Vista welfare
office about seven miles from the Mexican border and noticed
that many of the cars in the parking lot bore Mexican license
plates.
Fluent in Spanish, Sossaman talked with the owner of one
car, who confiemed that his wife was inside applying for
welfare using a fictitious San Diego address. His friends and
relatives in Mexico were already drawing checks. It was easy,
they'd boasted, because welfare caseworkers verified neither
eligibility nor citizenship.
When Sossaman confronted a coworker with what he had
witnessed, the man shrugged. ``It's been this way for
years,'' he said. ``It's our dirty little secret.''
That ``secret''--duplicated in countless communities across
the United States--is only beginning to dawn on taxpayers. A
Reader's Digest investigation into the exploitation of our
welfare and social-service system by illegal immigrants and
foreign visitors reveals a pattern of abuse, fraud and
official complacency costing taxpayers billions each year.
Here are a few of the shocking consequences:
Two-thirds of the births in Los Angeles County public
hospitals are to illegal aliens. Once born, the children are
automatically U.S. citizens, entitled to the full range of
social benefit programs. Nearly one-quarter of those
receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in
the county are children of illegals or of former illegals now
under amnesty.
New York City hospitals spend an estimated $500 million a
year on care for illegal aliens.
In Dade County, Florida, 16,395 undocumented children are
in public schools, placing an estimated $68-million burden on
taxpayers.
Asserting that federally mandated benefits for illegals are
draining the state treasury, Florida Governor Lawton Chiles
filed suit against the federal government in April to recover
up to $1 billion a year his state spends on their health and
education. Additional complaints are being made by the
governors of Arizona, Illinois and other states experiencing
budget-busting waves of illegal immigration.
For its fiscal year 1994-95, California estimates public
costs for illegal immigrants at $2.5 billion. Declares Gov.
Pete Wilson: ``We're forced to cut aid for the needy,
elderly, blind and disabled who legally reside in California
because Washington mandates that we spend billions on
illegals.''
The United States admits about 800,000 immigrants annually.
And the number of illegal immigrants is growing rapidly.
Though figures vary, approximately four million to five
million already live here, with at least 300,000 new illegals
arriving each year. An estimated one-third are Mexican, while
a large portion of the others come from South and Central
America, the Philippines, Canada, Poland and Haiti.
Most immigrants--both legal and illegal--come here to work.
But a large number are drawn by the prospect of manipulating
welfare programs, health care resources and school systems.
This multibillion-dollar scandal is characterized by:
Health-Care Rip-offs. Two weeks before giving birth, 29-
year-old Emily Jauregui, a Mexican-American reporter for the
El Paso Times, decided to see how easy it was for Mexican
nationals to receive medical care at U.S. taxpayers expense.
Last June, Jauregui crossed the border into neighboring
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where she watched in amazement as
pregnant women floated across the Rio Grande on inner tubes
within eyesight of the U.S. Border Patrol. Several
``coyotes''--people-smugglers--offered to deliver Jauregui
illegally across the border and to an El Paso hospital for as
little as $20.
At a Texas Tech health center in El Paso, Jauregui
registered for pre-natal care and pre-registered for her
baby's delivery at nearby Thomason Hospital. No
identification was necessary, and she was never asked if she
was a U.S. citizen. All that was needed was a notarized
letter from a friend or relative claiming she lived at the
person's home. ``What if the hospital finds out I don't live
there?'' Jauregui asked two other pregnant women--both
Mexican citizens--waiting for medical assistance.
``No one ever checks,'' she was assured. The women
explained how Medicaid would help pay the cost of her
delivery--about $1675-- and that once her child was born, she
could legally obtain WIC (the Women, Infants and Children
program that provides nutritious food to participants),
welfare, food stamps and public housing for the child.
All along the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexican border, clinics and
hospitals are being buffeted by a human tidal wave that was
unleashed in 1986 when Congress decreed that illegal aliens
must be given free emergency medical services, California
shelled out more than $300 million for their care last year
alone--more than double what it paid just four years ago.
Wealthy foreign visitors also take advantage of Medicaid
loopholes to qualify for free care. Here are typical cases:
Two Syrian doctors flew their son to California for cancer
chemotherapy. When state health officials refused to pay for
long-term treatment, the parents sued in Santa Clara County
Superior Court and won the right to follow-up care at
taxpayer expense.
An Israeli citizen received free heart surgery in Los
Angeles, then return over a year later to get disability
benefits for his condition.
An Armenian national traveled to the U.C.L.A. Medical
Center to undergo a $1-million liver transplant.
Education Freeloading. Scores of children from Tecate,
Mexico, 30 miles southeast of San Diego, crossed the border
every school day. Picked up by buses from the Mountain Empire
Unified School District, they would be driven to nearby
schools for education at taxpayer expense.
As he videotaped this scene last October, Matthew Adams, an
aide to California state assemblyman Jan Goldsmith, thought
to himself, There goes at least $3000 a child in taxpayer
money--one reason why this state is broke. The same scene was
repeated in other districts along the border.
Why were schools sending buses to pick up Mexican children?
The answer Goldsmith got was that the administrators had no
reason not to. In fact, the more students enrolled, the more
money the schools got from taxpayers.
* * * * *
Checks for Criminals. Elmer Sandoval-Garcia, 44, an illegal
immigrant from Guatemala, is considered by the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) to be a criminal-alien
fugitive. INS agents in Massachusetts have tried for years to
find him, but he has eluded capture, thanks in part to the
Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare, which does not
have to cooperate with federal agents.
Until June 1990, when he stopped picking up his checks,
Sandoval-Garcia received $339 a month in General Relief.
Welfare workers knew his whereabouts. Yet they could not
inform the INS: a 1985 executive order prohibited state
agencies, in many cases, from aiding the government in
investigating a person's citizenship or residency status.
Gov. Michael Dukakis signed the order as part of a
nationwide movement to provide sanctuary for refugees. The
Dukakis order also eliminated questions regarding citizenship
or residency status from applications for state benefits.
There are dozens of cases of illegal-immigrant fugitives
from countries as varied as Ireland, Poland, Haiti and
Columbia who collected public assistance under the shield of
the Dukakis order. Last October, Dukakis' successor, William
Weld, revoked the order, but INS officials say they are still
not getting the cooperation they need.
During the 1980s numerous municipal governments nationwide
enacted non-cooperation resolutions preventing city employees
from sharing information with the INS. The list includes New
York, Chicago and San Francisco.
A fast-growing segment of the nation's criminal population,
illegal immigrants now make up 25 percent of the federal
prison population. Some 450,000 illegals are behind bars, on
probation or on parole. In California alone, state prisons
will contain an estimated 18,000 alien inmates, costing
taxpayers over $400 million in fiscal year 1994-95.
In its defense, the INS is hamstrung by current treaties
under which, among other conditions, a foreign prisoner must
voluntarily seek transfer back to his own country to serve
time. Such transfers are few. In California, for instance,
there have been only nine over the past six years.
Document Fraud. Acting with welfare-fraud investigators, in
June 1992 the Walla Walla, Wash., police searched the house
of Celina Romero, her 20-year-old daughter, Julia, and her
friend Iraiz Diaz-Lopez, all illegal aliens. They found an
illegal-document processing mill, complete with INS seals,
blank Social Security cards, Temporary Resident Alien
certificates and phony driver's licenses, U.S. passports and
birth certificates.
Investigators concluded that the phony documents had been
used to draw a wide range of benefits, from welfare to
unemployment. But it was a letter to Celina Romero that
caught everyone's attention. Using the name Celina Medina,
she had received an $1,800 IRS refund with a letter that
stated: ``The information you provided about your name and
Social Security number still does not agree with that given
us by the Social Security Administration (SSA). However, we
are issuing your refund.''
When fraud investigators contacted SSA to get more
information, an official responded, ``It would be a breach of
confidentiality to share information with any other
government agency.''
``Our welfare-fraud people are so backlogged with cases
involving illegals that they are overwhelmed,'' says Yakima
County, Washington, Commissioner Jim Lewis. ``We even see
illegals registering to vote.''
Over 12 kinds of identification--most of them easily
fabricated--can be accepted by employers. An illegal who
finds a job can then qualify for unemployment and disability
benefits, housing subsidies and food stamps.
Official Indifference. David Sossaman, the San Diego
welfare-fraud investigator, quickly lost all illusions about
government will to control fraud. When he heard that illegal
aliens were congregating in ``drop houses,'' where they lived
while milking the system, he decided to visit one. At the
door he was met by a 19-year-old Mexican woman, pregnant and
unmarried. She had come to America to have here baby--paid
for by Medi-Cal. The child would automatically be a U.S.
citizen, and thus eligible for AFDC checks, food stamps and
other benefits. ``And there's nothing you can do about it,''
she told him before slamming the door.
Sossaman requested permission to inform the U.S. Border
Patrol of the drop house so that the illegals could be
deported. ``No, don't tell the Border Patrol,'' he was told.
``It would be a breach of confidentiality.''
``Why are you fighting the system? he was asked. ``Don't
you see we keep funding levels up because that pays our
salaries.''
``The more money that goes out, fraudulent or not, the
bigger their budget,'' Sossaman complained to his wife. He
then uncovered evidence that suggested San Diego County's
$700-million annual social-services budget experienced not a
less-than-one-percent fraud rate, as the department reported,
but one closer to 50 percent. He took his findings to a San
Diego County grand jury, which was investigating.
In April 1992, the grand-jury report accused the county
welfare department of having ``institutionalized a bias
against fraud prevention.'' Supervisors were found to have
ordered caseworkers to accept ``knowingly false'' documents
to establish residency by illegal aliens. Some caseworkers
were accused of fraud.
The grant jury determined that the department's rate of
``error and fraud'' exceeded ten percent and recommended ways
to combat the problem. Now the department has begun the
massive process of reining in the monster it helped create.
To bring this situation under control, Congress must take
these steps:
Proof of legal immigrant status should be verified before
welfare benefits are paid.
The identities of illegals must be furnished to law-
enforcement authorities and criminal aliens deported.
A fingerprint-based, tamper-resistant Social Security card
must be introduced.
The big question, however, is whether our elected officials
have the will to act. Last summer, while Congress was
creating a new billion-dollar-plus handout--the National
Service Program--Rep. Bill Baker (R., Calif.) was rebuffed
when he tried to limit its benefits to citizens and legal
immigrants. Baker and the supporters of reform were accused
of being mean-spirited, and his amendment was rejected 253-
180.
Meanwhile, the crisis keeps on growing. Hundreds of
thousands of illegals continue to flow in while billions of
tax dollars flow out to the freeloaders and criminals among
them.
In February Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) introduced
comprehensive legislation, ``The Illegal Immigration Control
Act of 1994'' (H.R. 3860), which includes reform to help
prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits to which they
are not entitled. It is time for action.
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