Illegal Immigrants Cost Michigan Taxpayers $1 Bil A Year

A Michigan lawmaker has revealed startling figures associated with illegal immigration in the Great Lakes region; taxpayers in the Wolverine State spend nearly $1 billion annually for their healthcare, education, welfare, jails and human services.

That’s a chunk of change for a Midwestern state with a population that doesn’t quite reach 10 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The figure doesn’t even include the toll illegal immigration takes on security and jobs that are taken by those who shouldn’t even be in the U.S., according to the Michigan State Representative, Dave Agema of Grandville.

Agema made the information public because Michigan’s Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, has come under fire for refusing to give illegal aliens driver’s licenses. That issue came up recently because President Obama granted nearly 1 million young illegal immigrants a special amnesty earlier this year and a few states have offered them driver’s licenses as icing on the cake.

Under Obama’s plan, announced in June, illegal aliens up to 30 years old who entered the U.S. as kids (so-called “dreamers”) won’t get deported, will be granted work permits and a chance at American citizenship. Obama Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says they deserve the opportunity because they are “young people brought to the United States through no fault of their own as children.”

Following the president’s  deferred action announcement, several states created special policies to allow the federally protected illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Among them are California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and North Carolina. Authorities in Arizona, Nebraska and Mississippi refused to do it and Michigan followed their lead this month.

Michigan’s Secretary of State points out that state law requires a non-citizen to provide “documents demonstrating his or her legal presence in the United States” in order to obtain a driver’s license or identification card. Besides, Obama’s new deferred action plan does not provide an individual with lawful status, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Regardless, the open borders movement has staged large demonstrations to protest Michigan’s “discriminatory” driver’s license policy. Congressman Agema reminds that those who come to the U.S. illegally are law breakers that harm our citizens. Driver’s licenses open doors to flights, government buildings and voter registration cards, Agema points out.