Speech #1040001761

New York. and Texas will illustrate the overwhelming demands on education. health care. welfare. prisons. and other social infrastructure. California. Florida. and Texas are actually suing the Federal Government for billions of dollars they have had to spend for such immigrant related costs. The dilemma before us is not limited to illegal immigrants as the media often implies. While approximately 300.000 illegal Immigrants come here each year. we actually admit almost 1 million legal immigrants a year. Legal immigration creates a demand more than three times greater than illegal immigration. Simply put. States do not have the resources to provide services to an additional 1.3 million persons a year. Some will say that these immigrants do not come over here for a hand out. but that they come over to work and live the American dream. However. if we assume this to be truethat they come to America to workthen this means they increase the supply of The labor force. Of the 974.000 immigrants that were gtanted legal permanent residence in 1992. 672.303 were betweei. the ages of 20 and 64. If these immigrants enter t.e job market. their entry effectively reduces wages by increasing the labor sapplied. At a time when real income is stagnant if not declining. immigration policy should not contribute such a strong downward pressure on real income. Such a policy does not make fiscal or social sense. The scenario Just mentioned is the optimist view. If one chooses to assume the opposite. that immigrants choose not to work. the inevitable result is an increase in the demand of social services. As mentioned earlier. the demand is already too high for many States. Neither of the two scenarios paint a pretty picture.