[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

I'm in favor or legal immigration. I think that penniless, unskilled immigrants, whether they come legally or illegally, are a huge drain.

"How much of your public school tuition bill do you fund? In CT, I think it's 16K a year. How many kids do you have?"

I have 3 kids in public school, costs my town about 39k a year. I pay about 10k a year to my town in property taxes on my house, cars, and camper. So right now, I'm a drain. But we lived here, paying taxes, for many years before we had kids, and will be here hopefully for many years after, so in the end, I'll pay my own way. But illegals, and many legal immigrants who don't pay as much as me in taxes, will never cover their own bill. That's what the math is. As I've said, I'm happy to pay my share to help those who can't afford to pay their own share. But it's utter nonsense to claim that most immigrants, especially illegals, will pay their own way.

"Few parents actually pay the cost of public education for their children, it is a cost that we as a society choose to fund."

True. But having more illegal hispanic immigrants, who pay less taxes and have more children, makes it a bigger drain, not less of a drain.

"I grasp what you are claiming but your argument is incorrect"

So FL and CA are seeing a windfall, not a drain on their economy, from illegal immigration. Gotcha.

I don't see CA complaining, do you?
Florida is going to need all the labor it can get to rebuild, they might take more cheap labor
Look at illegal immigration prior to 9/11 and after, our enforcement changed patterns radically and basically made it so they had to stay because of the cost of sneaking in as opposed to walking across, back for a while and across again. I had Canadian drywall guys doing it for years, no issues.