Publicly Funded Centers Aide Fla. Illegal Immigrants

Taxpayer-funded employment and social services centers for illegal immigrants are popping up throughout south Florida and advocates of immigration enforcement are taking note and protesting.

In Miami-Dade county $200,000 of taxpayer money was recently used to fund such a facility in Cutler Bay and further north in Jupiter, nearly 2 million taxpayer dollars were spent on a building that that for the last year has been home to a large hiring center for illegal aliens. Two similar facilities are scheduled to open in the same county, Palm Beach, in the coming months.

The Jupiter facility, called El Sol Neighborhood Resource Center, has come under heavy fire lately from a local group opposed to using public money to help those in the country illegally. Elected officials in Jupiter, with a population of about 40,000, claim their project is a huge success that was inspired by complaints about illegal immigrants soliciting jobs on town streets.

Jupiter officials actually created a task force a few years ago to conduct a thorough study on creating the hiring center, initially allocating $200,000 for the project. They call it a collaborative public/private endeavor that provides an organized and supervised alternative to the daily gatherings of day laborers that previously solicited work along several Jupiter streets.

The center proudly offers a place for workers and employers to hook up, job training, English and computer classes and a variety of social services to the numerous illegal aliens who meet there regularly. The free services are available to all Jupiter residents. No questions asked.

Dozens of outraged residents have recently held protests at the site, calling it Jupiter’s illegal alien hiring hall. Led by a group called Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, the protesters claim they will demonstrate until El Sol shuts down and their hard-earned tax dollars are no longer utilized to help those in the U.S. illegally.