[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 65 (Monday, May 23, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 GOVERNMENT SERVICES AND ILLEGAL ALIENS

                                 ______


                         HON. DANA ROHRABACHER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 23, 1994

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the cost of providing Government 
services to illegal aliens has reached a boiling point. At a time when 
our Nation is trillions of dollars in debt and many Americans are 
struggling to make ends meet, we are giving away billions of dollars to 
people who have broken the law by being here. The following article, 
``Welfare for Illegal Aliens?'' which appears in the June 1994 edition 
of Reader's Digest, clearly shows the magnitude of this problem. I urge 
all my colleagues to read this informative article.

                   [From Reader's Digest, June 1994]

                      Welfare For Illegal Aliens?

                         (By Randy Fitzgerald)

       Soon after David Sossaman began work as an investigator for 
     the San Diego County welfare-fraud unit, he was told by a 
     colleague that thousands of Mexican citizens were crossing 
     into Southern California to collect U.S. welfare benefits. 
     Disbelieving but curious, he drove to the Chula Vista welfare 
     office about seven miles from the Mexican border and noticed 
     that many of the cars in the parking lot bore Mexican license 
     plates.
       Fluent in Spanish, Sossaman talked with the owner of one 
     car, who confiemed that his wife was inside applying for 
     welfare using a fictitious San Diego address. His friends and 
     relatives in Mexico were already drawing checks. It was easy, 
     they'd boasted, because welfare caseworkers verified neither 
     eligibility nor citizenship.
       When Sossaman confronted a coworker with what he had 
     witnessed, the man shrugged. ``It's been this way for 
     years,'' he said. ``It's our dirty little secret.''
       That ``secret''--duplicated in countless communities across 
     the United States--is only beginning to dawn on taxpayers. A 
     Reader's Digest investigation into the exploitation of our 
     welfare and social-service system by illegal immigrants and 
     foreign visitors reveals a pattern of abuse, fraud and 
     official complacency costing taxpayers billions each year.
       Here are a few of the shocking consequences:
       Two-thirds of the births in Los Angeles County public 
     hospitals are to illegal aliens. Once born, the children are 
     automatically U.S. citizens, entitled to the full range of 
     social benefit programs. Nearly one-quarter of those 
     receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 
     the county are children of illegals or of former illegals now 
     under amnesty.
       New York City hospitals spend an estimated $500 million a 
     year on care for illegal aliens.
       In Dade County, Florida, 16,395 undocumented children are 
     in public schools, placing an estimated $68-million burden on 
     taxpayers.
       Asserting that federally mandated benefits for illegals are 
     draining the state treasury, Florida Governor Lawton Chiles 
     filed suit against the federal government in April to recover 
     up to $1 billion a year his state spends on their health and 
     education. Additional complaints are being made by the 
     governors of Arizona, Illinois and other states experiencing 
     budget-busting waves of illegal immigration.
       For its fiscal year 1994-95, California estimates public 
     costs for illegal immigrants at $2.5 billion. Declares Gov. 
     Pete Wilson: ``We're forced to cut aid for the needy, 
     elderly, blind and disabled who legally reside in California 
     because Washington mandates that we spend billions on 
     illegals.''
       The United States admits about 800,000 immigrants annually. 
     And the number of illegal immigrants is growing rapidly. 
     Though figures vary, approximately four million to five 
     million already live here, with at least 300,000 new illegals 
     arriving each year. An estimated one-third are Mexican, while 
     a large portion of the others come from South and Central 
     America, the Philippines, Canada, Poland and Haiti.
       Most immigrants--both legal and illegal--come here to work. 
     But a large number are drawn by the prospect of manipulating 
     welfare programs, health care resources and school systems.
       This multibillion-dollar scandal is characterized by:
       Health-Care Rip-offs. Two weeks before giving birth, 29-
     year-old Emily Jauregui, a Mexican-American reporter for the 
     El Paso Times, decided to see how easy it was for Mexican 
     nationals to receive medical care at U.S. taxpayers expense.
       Last June, Jauregui crossed the border into neighboring 
     Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where she watched in amazement as 
     pregnant women floated across the Rio Grande on inner tubes 
     within eyesight of the U.S. Border Patrol. Several 
     ``coyotes''--people-smugglers--offered to deliver Jauregui 
     illegally across the border and to an El Paso hospital for as 
     little as $20.
       At a Texas Tech health center in El Paso, Jauregui 
     registered for pre-natal care and pre-registered for her 
     baby's delivery at nearby Thomason Hospital. No 
     identification was necessary, and she was never asked if she 
     was a U.S. citizen. All that was needed was a notarized 
     letter from a friend or relative claiming she lived at the 
     person's home. ``What if the hospital finds out I don't live 
     there?'' Jauregui asked two other pregnant women--both 
     Mexican citizens--waiting for medical assistance.
       ``No one ever checks,'' she was assured. The women 
     explained how Medicaid would help pay the cost of her 
     delivery--about $1675-- and that once her child was born, she 
     could legally obtain WIC (the Women, Infants and Children 
     program that provides nutritious food to participants), 
     welfare, food stamps and public housing for the child.
       All along the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexican border, clinics and 
     hospitals are being buffeted by a human tidal wave that was 
     unleashed in 1986 when Congress decreed that illegal aliens 
     must be given free emergency medical services, California 
     shelled out more than $300 million for their care last year 
     alone--more than double what it paid just four years ago.
       Wealthy foreign visitors also take advantage of Medicaid 
     loopholes to qualify for free care. Here are typical cases:
       Two Syrian doctors flew their son to California for cancer 
     chemotherapy. When state health officials refused to pay for 
     long-term treatment, the parents sued in Santa Clara County 
     Superior Court and won the right to follow-up care at 
     taxpayer expense.
       An Israeli citizen received free heart surgery in Los 
     Angeles, then return over a year later to get disability 
     benefits for his condition.
       An Armenian national traveled to the U.C.L.A. Medical 
     Center to undergo a $1-million liver transplant.
       Education Freeloading. Scores of children from Tecate, 
     Mexico, 30 miles southeast of San Diego, crossed the border 
     every school day. Picked up by buses from the Mountain Empire 
     Unified School District, they would be driven to nearby 
     schools for education at taxpayer expense.
       As he videotaped this scene last October, Matthew Adams, an 
     aide to California state assemblyman Jan Goldsmith, thought 
     to himself, There goes at least $3000 a child in taxpayer 
     money--one reason why this state is broke. The same scene was 
     repeated in other districts along the border.
       Why were schools sending buses to pick up Mexican children? 
     The answer Goldsmith got was that the administrators had no 
     reason not to. In fact, the more students enrolled, the more 
     money the schools got from taxpayers.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Checks for Criminals. Elmer Sandoval-Garcia, 44, an illegal 
     immigrant from Guatemala, is considered by the Immigration 
     and Naturalization Service (INS) to be a criminal-alien 
     fugitive. INS agents in Massachusetts have tried for years to 
     find him, but he has eluded capture, thanks in part to the 
     Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare, which does not 
     have to cooperate with federal agents.
       Until June 1990, when he stopped picking up his checks, 
     Sandoval-Garcia received $339 a month in General Relief. 
     Welfare workers knew his whereabouts. Yet they could not 
     inform the INS: a 1985 executive order prohibited state 
     agencies, in many cases, from aiding the government in 
     investigating a person's citizenship or residency status.
       Gov. Michael Dukakis signed the order as part of a 
     nationwide movement to provide sanctuary for refugees. The 
     Dukakis order also eliminated questions regarding citizenship 
     or residency status from applications for state benefits.
       There are dozens of cases of illegal-immigrant fugitives 
     from countries as varied as Ireland, Poland, Haiti and 
     Columbia who collected public assistance under the shield of 
     the Dukakis order. Last October, Dukakis' successor, William 
     Weld, revoked the order, but INS officials say they are still 
     not getting the cooperation they need.
       During the 1980s numerous municipal governments nationwide 
     enacted non-cooperation resolutions preventing city employees 
     from sharing information with the INS. The list includes New 
     York, Chicago and San Francisco.
       A fast-growing segment of the nation's criminal population, 
     illegal immigrants now make up 25 percent of the federal 
     prison population. Some 450,000 illegals are behind bars, on 
     probation or on parole. In California alone, state prisons 
     will contain an estimated 18,000 alien inmates, costing 
     taxpayers over $400 million in fiscal year 1994-95.
       In its defense, the INS is hamstrung by current treaties 
     under which, among other conditions, a foreign prisoner must 
     voluntarily seek transfer back to his own country to serve 
     time. Such transfers are few. In California, for instance, 
     there have been only nine over the past six years.
       Document Fraud. Acting with welfare-fraud investigators, in 
     June 1992 the Walla Walla, Wash., police searched the house 
     of Celina Romero, her 20-year-old daughter, Julia, and her 
     friend Iraiz Diaz-Lopez, all illegal aliens. They found an 
     illegal-document processing mill, complete with INS seals, 
     blank Social Security cards, Temporary Resident Alien 
     certificates and phony driver's licenses, U.S. passports and 
     birth certificates.
       Investigators concluded that the phony documents had been 
     used to draw a wide range of benefits, from welfare to 
     unemployment. But it was a letter to Celina Romero that 
     caught everyone's attention. Using the name Celina Medina, 
     she had received an $1,800 IRS refund with a letter that 
     stated: ``The information you provided about your name and 
     Social Security number still does not agree with that given 
     us by the Social Security Administration (SSA). However, we 
     are issuing your refund.''
       When fraud investigators contacted SSA to get more 
     information, an official responded, ``It would be a breach of 
     confidentiality to share information with any other 
     government agency.''
       ``Our welfare-fraud people are so backlogged with cases 
     involving illegals that they are overwhelmed,'' says Yakima 
     County, Washington, Commissioner Jim Lewis. ``We even see 
     illegals registering to vote.''
       Over 12 kinds of identification--most of them easily 
     fabricated--can be accepted by employers. An illegal who 
     finds a job can then qualify for unemployment and disability 
     benefits, housing subsidies and food stamps.
       Official Indifference. David Sossaman, the San Diego 
     welfare-fraud investigator, quickly lost all illusions about 
     government will to control fraud. When he heard that illegal 
     aliens were congregating in ``drop houses,'' where they lived 
     while milking the system, he decided to visit one. At the 
     door he was met by a 19-year-old Mexican woman, pregnant and 
     unmarried. She had come to America to have here baby--paid 
     for by Medi-Cal. The child would automatically be a U.S. 
     citizen, and thus eligible for AFDC checks, food stamps and 
     other benefits. ``And there's nothing you can do about it,'' 
     she told him before slamming the door.
       Sossaman requested permission to inform the U.S. Border 
     Patrol of the drop house so that the illegals could be 
     deported. ``No, don't tell the Border Patrol,'' he was told. 
     ``It would be a breach of confidentiality.''
       ``Why are you fighting the system? he was asked. ``Don't 
     you see we keep funding levels up because that pays our 
     salaries.''
       ``The more money that goes out, fraudulent or not, the 
     bigger their budget,'' Sossaman complained to his wife. He 
     then uncovered evidence that suggested San Diego County's 
     $700-million annual social-services budget experienced not a 
     less-than-one-percent fraud rate, as the department reported, 
     but one closer to 50 percent. He took his findings to a San 
     Diego County grand jury, which was investigating.
       In April 1992, the grand-jury report accused the county 
     welfare department of having ``institutionalized a bias 
     against fraud prevention.'' Supervisors were found to have 
     ordered caseworkers to accept ``knowingly false'' documents 
     to establish residency by illegal aliens. Some caseworkers 
     were accused of fraud.
       The grant jury determined that the department's rate of 
     ``error and fraud'' exceeded ten percent and recommended ways 
     to combat the problem. Now the department has begun the 
     massive process of reining in the monster it helped create.
       To bring this situation under control, Congress must take 
     these steps:
       Proof of legal immigrant status should be verified before 
     welfare benefits are paid.
       The identities of illegals must be furnished to law-
     enforcement authorities and criminal aliens deported.
       A fingerprint-based, tamper-resistant Social Security card 
     must be introduced.
       The big question, however, is whether our elected officials 
     have the will to act. Last summer, while Congress was 
     creating a new billion-dollar-plus handout--the National 
     Service Program--Rep. Bill Baker (R., Calif.) was rebuffed 
     when he tried to limit its benefits to citizens and legal 
     immigrants. Baker and the supporters of reform were accused 
     of being mean-spirited, and his amendment was rejected 253-
     180.
       Meanwhile, the crisis keeps on growing. Hundreds of 
     thousands of illegals continue to flow in while billions of 
     tax dollars flow out to the freeloaders and criminals among 
     them.
       In February Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) introduced 
     comprehensive legislation, ``The Illegal Immigration Control 
     Act of 1994'' (H.R. 3860), which includes reform to help 
     prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits to which they 
     are not entitled. It is time for action.

                          ____________________