Battling Illegal Immigration Texas Style
The illegal immigration crisis is so severe that a major border state which once welcomed illegal aliens and considered them good for its economy has created a series of laws to deny them costly taxpayer-funded services.
A bipartisan group of Texas legislators have joined forces to author and introduce a series of bills to end the costly toll that illegal aliens have had on the state’s economy. Among them is a proposal that would bar the U.S.-born babies of illegal immigrants from receiving costly state benefits such as food stamps, health care and public housing.
The so-called anchor babies cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually in public benefits and hospital costs because the infants are automatically U.S. citizens who immediately qualify for the services. Federal law says hospitals must provide care for the delivering mother and baby regardless of immigration status.
Other proposed bills would impose an 8% fee on money transfers between Texas and Mexico or central and South America, reverse a law that allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public universities and require state agencies to prove immigration status of people receiving public services.
As expected, illegal immigration advocates are outraged by the proposed legislation and one Chicano news site called the bill to deny anchor babies public benefits “ethnic cleansing” while accusing Texas of being the anti-brown state. The congressman who wrote the law, Republican Leo Berman, points out that it’s outrageous that a pregnant illegal alien can wait at the border, check into a hospital in Texas, give birth without paying a penny and be rewarded for her illegal behavior.