Speaker 1: In action has decimated America.
Speaker 2: With the stroke of a pen, Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Speaker 2: signed into law what the ACOU dubbs one of the
Speaker 2: most radical anti immigrant bills ever passed by any state.
Speaker 1: Simon Bill four is now law in the state of Texas.
Speaker 2: S before creates a new state crime for a legal
Speaker 2: entry into Texas, gives local police the power to arrest
Speaker 2: and judges the power to remove violators.
Speaker 1: But the problem is far more than just numbers.
Speaker 3: Well, it sounds dramatic to say the strictest laws ever
Speaker 3: passed by any state. Well, states aren't supposed to pass
Speaker 3: laws about a federal issue like illegal immigration. But the
Speaker 3: point is the federal government is doing nothing about it.
Speaker 3: So I guess we'll try. And as we talked about
Speaker 3: earlier in the show with Tim the lawyer, Tim Sandefer,
Speaker 3: you know, this will probably get hung up in the courts,
Speaker 3: but there is a chance that the Supreme Court says
Speaker 3: the federal government is actually not addressing something they're supposed
Speaker 3: to address, and so we'll let the states do it.
Speaker 3: There's a possibility that could happen. By the way, something
Speaker 3: back on December fifth, two weeks ago, twelve thousand migrants
Speaker 3: were encountered at our border. I don't know who decided
Speaker 3: to use this language. Migrants encountered, illegals crossed most of
Speaker 3: the time, getting in and staying here. Twelve thousand. That
Speaker 3: was the highest ever in a single day, a record.
Speaker 3: Back on December fifth, two weeks later, yesterday, fourteen thousand
Speaker 3: encountered at.
Speaker 1: The border, a new record.
Speaker 3: Everybody, nice job setting new records regularly for illegal immigration. Unbelievable.
Speaker 3: As we often do whenever we're talking about this topic,
Speaker 3: we turn to the Center for Immigration Studies in a
Speaker 3: variety of people we've talked to over the years, and
Speaker 3: today we're going to talk to Stephen Camarata, lead author
Speaker 3: of a report saying the majority of immigrant households use welfare.
Speaker 3: I would like to know more about that, Stephen, Welcome
Speaker 3: to the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: So what can you tell us about who use it?
Speaker 3: Because one of the arguments, well there are two arguments.
Speaker 3: One of the arguments for closing down the borders so
Speaker 3: that people come across and they drain our resources and
Speaker 3: cost taxpayer money.
Speaker 1: Taxpayers money.
Speaker 3: Then colleges come out with these sophisticated studies and say, no,
Speaker 3: they actually contribute to the economy more than they take.
Speaker 3: So what have you found?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so okay, A lot of times people say different terminologies.
Speaker 4: A couple of things. When we talk about immigrants overall
Speaker 4: in this data, the first number, fifty four percent of
Speaker 4: all immigrant households use one of the major welfare programs.
Speaker 4: A lot of it is the non cash programs like
Speaker 4: food stamps and public housing and the earned incomes tax
Speaker 4: credit and all that sort of stuff. So when we're
Speaker 4: talking about that, we look at the fiscal impact of
Speaker 4: immigrants on the United States, all the taxes they pay
Speaker 4: and all the services they use, that looks to be negative.
Speaker 4: One of the things you have to decide though on that,
Speaker 4: just methodologically, is what do you do with children. So
Speaker 4: a person has a child who's enrolled in school, and
Speaker 4: that child's on Medicaid, and that child is reskiving free lunches,
Speaker 4: or is on the Wick program or what have you.
Speaker 4: How do you count that since the child was born here.
Speaker 4: If you want to make the immigrants not seen like
Speaker 4: they're a fiscal burden, you just exclude all that and
Speaker 4: you say none of that matters. Yes, the parent is
Speaker 4: not able to provide for the child. So the child
Speaker 4: technically is getting the food stamps. The child is on
Speaker 4: Medicaid right, the child gets wick, but none of that
Speaker 4: that's all counted for native expenses because the child was
Speaker 4: born here. If you count the children of immigrants with
Speaker 4: the young children, they're dependent children. If you will with
Speaker 4: the immigrants themselves, you usually end up with a negative number.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean that the children will not grow up
Speaker 4: and be at least average. That doesn't mean that, but
Speaker 4: it means right now and for the foreseeable future, the
Speaker 4: immigrants and their kids are net fiscal drain. Now. One
Speaker 4: other point, if you want to go a little deeper
Speaker 4: all just play is because we live in a society
Speaker 4: that's unwilling to tax itself for all the things that
Speaker 4: we want, and that we borrow so much money. That's
Speaker 4: also another factor that consider is that the average person
Speaker 4: is basically in fiscal deficits because we're not willing to
Speaker 4: raise taxes to pay for all this stuff we want
Speaker 4: to give out at the federal level, at the state
Speaker 4: level where you have to have balanced budgets. Whenever we
Speaker 4: do a calculation, immigrants are unambiguously a fiscal drain, paying
Speaker 4: less than taxes than they use in services if you
Speaker 4: count the kids. Now on the final point, the economics,
Speaker 4: which I won't go much into, there's no question that
Speaker 4: the US economy is hundreds of billions of dollars, actually
Speaker 4: well more than a trillion dollars larger than it otherwise
Speaker 4: would be because we have so many more people in
Speaker 4: the country. Whether that is a benefit to the native
Speaker 4: born that increases the per capita GDP in the United
Speaker 4: States totally different questions. But there's no question more people
Speaker 4: means a bigger economy, more economic activity, more labors, more consumers.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean you're richer, because if all that mattered
Speaker 4: was the aggregate size of the economy, well then people
Speaker 4: would say that Bangladesh is much richer than New Zealand
Speaker 4: because it is its economy is much larger. Right, of course,
Speaker 4: what matters is per capita. When we look at per
Speaker 4: capita GDP or to capita income, it doesn't seem that
Speaker 4: the native born population benefits very much from the immigrants. Ah,
Speaker 4: but the immigrants do benefit in that sure consider.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: You know that was a great lesson the last few
Speaker 3: minutes in the great Mark Twain quote of the three
Speaker 3: kinds of lies, lies, damned lies, and statistics. I mean,
Speaker 3: because obviously you can use a lot of those statistics
Speaker 3: to make arguments whatever direction you want to make. But
Speaker 3: that that's really interesting stuff, well done.
Speaker 1: And I also think.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much of it is when you
Speaker 3: when you see people's reaction to immigration, And I don't
Speaker 3: know how much you want to differentiate between legal immigration
Speaker 3: and illegal immigration. Obviously we've got a ton of illegal
Speaker 3: immigration going on right now. But I think people see,
Speaker 3: you know, in their schools, you got a bunch of
Speaker 3: people that don't speak English and their schools struggling to
Speaker 3: deal with it. Your er is the regular hospital for
Speaker 3: a lot of people who are here who don't have
Speaker 3: any sort of healthcare or insurance anything like that. And clogs,
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of guming up the works
Speaker 3: of systems that weren't designed for this. Isn't that where
Speaker 3: a lot of people's attitudes come from? Do you think?
Speaker 1: Sure? Sure?
Speaker 4: I mean, people don't know the statistics. Here's what you
Speaker 4: get again. You get fifty four percent from the Survey
Speaker 4: of Income and Program Participation shows of immigrant households using
Speaker 4: one or more welfare programs we estimate that it's fifty
Speaker 4: nine percent for illegals percent for legal immigrants. Yeah, both
Speaker 4: are very high. And the illegals can receive more receive
Speaker 4: use more programs, but the legals can use programs to
Speaker 4: get more benefits. So it's a little bit complicated, but
Speaker 4: the short answer is they're both really high. Let me
Speaker 4: tell your listeners this though, so they don't have to
Speaker 4: leave with that. The rate for the native born is
Speaker 4: thirty nine percent. Yes, that's right. It's extremely common in
Speaker 4: America for the native born population. And you don't want
Speaker 4: to know what it is in California. I mean in
Speaker 4: California it's it's even higher. It's forty one percent for
Speaker 4: native born households use one or more of the welfare programs.
Speaker 4: And even if you say now, you might say, well
Speaker 4: which programs can you exclude some and get a difference. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you can exclude the free school lunches and breakfasts, but
Speaker 4: you still get thirty five percent, and in California you
Speaker 4: still get fifty three percent. For the immigrants, you still
Speaker 4: get for the illegal immigrants you get fifty six percent,
Speaker 4: and for the lead immigrants in California, excluding the free
Speaker 4: school lunch program, you still get fifty three percent. No
Speaker 4: one program drives the numbers. They're just using a lot
Speaker 4: of programs across the board. And again, Native welfare use
Speaker 4: is very high, and immigrants is higher still, and California
Speaker 4: kind of is the tops. They're the most one of
Speaker 4: the most generous states.
Speaker 1: Now generous, I like the word generous.
Speaker 4: Yes, they're generous.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad I'm being so generous. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: I had a choice.
Speaker 4: That's right, you're being generous. The other thing tor members
Speaker 4: people said, well give but wait, how can the illegal
Speaker 4: immigrants get so much? The short answer is, I can
Speaker 4: run through it quick. It's the usborn children. They can
Speaker 4: receive anything. Also, not all programs are barred, like free
Speaker 4: school lunch and WICK. Anyone can receive those programs. Also
Speaker 4: a number of states, including California, provide medicaid even to
Speaker 4: illegal adults, and of course all their usborn children could
Speaker 4: get it. And there are other states that provide the
Speaker 4: food stamps. Also, because we give out I know this
Speaker 4: sounds shocking to people, we could explain it. We give
Speaker 4: out work authorization to illegal immigrants, so they're technically illegally
Speaker 4: in the United States. They're called inadmissible aliens if you
Speaker 4: want to know the term. But we've given them social
Speaker 4: Security numbers so they can work. But this allows them
Speaker 4: to access cash benefits from the earned income tax credit.
Speaker 4: You don't pay any federal income tax if your incomes
Speaker 4: low enough, and you get sometimes a check for four
Speaker 4: or five thousand dollars from the government. And yes, illegal
Speaker 4: immigrants can and you get that check because they have
Speaker 4: the work authorization. They're just so you understand that that happens. Now,
Speaker 4: that's not all illegal immigrants. Don't get me wrong, Sure,
Speaker 4: that's what happens.
Speaker 3: Well, And just to make it clear, I mean we
Speaker 3: always say this. I don't begrudge anybody doing this. Man,
Speaker 3: if you knew you could get in and have a
Speaker 3: kid in the United States and what the path that's
Speaker 3: going to set them on, Hell yeah, I would do that,
Speaker 3: right And look.
Speaker 4: The other that's right. Look, we have no evidence that's
Speaker 4: probably happening, but that's not what drives the numbers. No evidence.
Speaker 4: This is fraud. And let me tell you something else.
Speaker 4: Eighty three percent of immigrant households have at least one worker.
Speaker 4: Ninety four percent of illegal immigrant of illegal immigrants, it's
Speaker 4: eighty three for all immigrant households, and it's ninety four
Speaker 4: percent for illegal immigrant households have at least one worker.
Speaker 4: The comparison with the native borns is seventy three percent.
Speaker 4: But work, Yeah, work and welfare go together just fine.
Speaker 4: All the programs we've been discussing. You couldn't get the
Speaker 4: Well the Earn Income Task Credit is for workers, but
Speaker 4: you can get wick and free school lunch, and live
Speaker 4: in public housing and be on Medicaid and many other
Speaker 4: things even if you work. If your income is low enough,
Speaker 4: So if you're like a family of four and you
Speaker 4: make less than forty thousand a year, most welfare programs
Speaker 4: are open to you. And in California and specific the
Speaker 4: income thresholds tend to be high, so they tend to
Speaker 4: give you a lot and you're eligible for just about everything.
Speaker 4: Other states like Texas or Florida more restrictive, but still
Speaker 4: you can get lots of programs. Work does not in
Speaker 4: any way preclude welfare use. If you had to put
Speaker 4: this whole phenomenon in a bumper sticker, when it comes
Speaker 4: to immigrant workers, it's there's a high cost to cheap labor,
Speaker 4: but it's born by taxpayers. The costs are diffuse. They're
Speaker 4: born by everyone. Whereas the employer and maybe the consumer
Speaker 4: who's using the services, they get the benefit, but everyone
Speaker 4: has to pay got.
Speaker 3: So you get your lawn mode for what you feel
Speaker 3: like is a really great price, or house cleaned or whatever,
Speaker 3: but your taxes are so high.
Speaker 4: Right, And I think that's the way to think about it, exactly.
Speaker 4: And so the short entw is okay, but maybe we
Speaker 4: need these workers. But I would add one other thing,
Speaker 4: and that is that one of the things that's happening
Speaker 4: in America, one of the most troubling trends is all
Speaker 4: the US born people of all races, black, Hispanic, and white.
Speaker 4: We've seen this phenomenon sitting on them sidelines. That is,
Speaker 4: they neither work nor do they look for work, which
Speaker 4: means every unemployment number you see does not include So
Speaker 4: let me give you just one exgo. If you look
Speaker 4: at men who have only a high school education or
Speaker 4: less in nineteen sixty, only seven of them. We're entirely
Speaker 4: out of the labor market, neither working nor looking for
Speaker 4: men looking for work today it's twenty five percent. So
Speaker 4: we have no millions of less educated Americans sitting on
Speaker 4: the sidelines. So if we really do need workers, my
Speaker 4: solution is that it would make more sense to let
Speaker 4: wages rise and help the working for and this would
Speaker 4: help attract Americans who are sitting on the sidelines back.
Speaker 4: But you'd probably need to reform the welfare system and
Speaker 4: especially the disability system. Yeah, a long explanation. A lot
Speaker 4: of these numbers reflect what happened, is we reformed welfare
Speaker 4: and everyone just went on disability.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4: That's a gross oversimplification.
Speaker 1: Hey, this is talk radio, that's what we do.
Speaker 3: I got to interrupt you just because you hit us
Speaker 3: with the blizzard of stuff there. All of it really
Speaker 3: really good man, you're speaking our language. We cover those
Speaker 3: topics so often. And the number of healthy men who
Speaker 3: are who can choose not to work. I mean, when
Speaker 3: in world history have you ever been able to choose
Speaker 3: not to work as a healthy man, you can choose
Speaker 3: not to work. On our current society, you might have
Speaker 3: to change based on all those stats. Change it from
Speaker 3: the Center for Immigration Studies to the Center of We're
Speaker 3: already a socialist country studies.
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, people have that misconception. There's really not
Speaker 4: the extensive nature of America's welfare system is not that
Speaker 4: different than many Western European countries. I mean, the European
Speaker 4: countries differ. But that's one reason why if you have
Speaker 4: a relatively laxed immigration system, which our legal system is
Speaker 4: mostly based on family relationships, not skills, and of course
Speaker 4: illegal immigration is not very selective at all. And so
Speaker 4: what the administration is doing by releasing so many people
Speaker 4: in the United States, that's the part I think the
Speaker 4: public still doesn't quite get. It's not that people people
Speaker 4: are doing this in enormous numbers, slipping past the border patrol,
Speaker 4: but that's not mostly what's happening. They're being caught and
Speaker 4: then released, or they're presenting themselves at the border and
Speaker 4: being presented and being released under a variety of what
Speaker 4: I would argue is abuse of the lag using parole
Speaker 4: and asylum and such. But the point is that's what's happening.
Speaker 4: So if you had a wall that no one could
Speaker 4: ever get past between the ports of entry, it might
Speaker 4: not make that much difference.
Speaker 3: Right, I see your point, because it is being released. Right, Hey,
Speaker 3: we gotta take a break. I really enjoyed your time.
Speaker 3: I'm glad we could get you on. We're gonna talk
Speaker 3: to you again, Stephen Camarada with the Center for Immigration Studies.
Speaker 1: That was great stuff.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, he was good. We gotta have him on
Speaker 3: again when Joe's here. Love that stuff so interesting, looking
Speaker 3: at statistics from a number of different ways, which people
Speaker 3: rarely do. Anyway, we got to introduce Katie Green to
Speaker 3: one of the worst Christmas songs we've been playing for years.
Speaker 3: I bet she hasn't heard this.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, Armstrong and Getty