Speech #970046880

It adds to that $6 million for education assistance to school districts which bear the cost of treating these disadvantaged. nonEnglish speaking children. These are quite low estimates. Assistance for Cuban and Haitian entrants. like that for refugees. is limited to 3 years. It thus declines dramatically to $53 million in fiscal year 1983. when most of the entrants are expected to be selfsufficient. and disappears to zero in 1984. These payments are only a fraction of the costs borne bv the taxpayers of States which bear the brunt of Federal immigration policy. or the lack of such a policy. They cover mostly the costs of welfare and medicaid. which the Federal Government requires the States to provide. The social services are vocational training and related programs designed to bring the refugees into the work force. These payments do not include the massive costs of police. fire. sanitation. housing. and other municipal services required for the 160.000 people who came to Florida in just a few months. That is equivalent to adding services for a quarter of the population of Boston. a massive job and a burden for local taxpayers. Much has been written about the economic success of the earlier Cuban refugees. Let me just point out two things. First. it took 20 years to achieve that success and bring the average Cuban refugee income up to the level of nonCubans. Second. this new wave of refugees lacked the educational and economic background of the first group. They are not the upper middleclass looking just for political freedom. They are a lowincome group looking for lowskill jobs.