Open letter to Gloria Molina

Glendora, CA 91741

July 14, 2004

Supervisor Gloria Molina

856 Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration

Los Angeles CA, 90012

Dear Ms. Molina:     Re:  Ya basta

Your comments during yesterday’s County Supervisor meeting regarding interviewing jail prisoners to determine their legal residency status were as disingenuous as they were transparent. Looks like you’ll use the straw man of who contributes the manpower to perform prisoner interviews as your trap door to table the project. Could it be that your real objective in this matter is the continuation of flooding our country with hundreds-of-thousands of illegal aliens, with little or no concern for the welfare of those Americans already here?

Remember your payback comments at the 1997 Southwest Voter Registration Education Project; "We demand to be counted. And what we know as well is that the “big giant”** that they keep talking about is awakening. And he's pretty angry about what's going on. Ya basta! This community is no longer going to stand for it. … And our vote is going to be important. But I gotta tell you that a lot of people are saying, 'I'm going to go out there and vote because I want to pay them back.”

Another speaker at the 1997 Southwest Voter Registration Education Project was long time union activist and current California State Senador, Gilbert Cedillo who said, "We move the union movement deep into the Latino community. We have displaced other work communities -- clothing, hotel and restaurant industries used to be done by Blacks and Anglos. Now we need to organize to be in a position to lead (take over) this country! Because of immigration and the birth rate, our population is growing -- Latinos are all over this nation!" It was Cedillo's movement that wiped-out American Black janitors in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It was this same movement that wiped-out American dry-wallers in Southern California a few years later.

Not much to choose from either of these speakers, or their ideas.  In both cases the rigor their analysis was its own undoing. Imagine the malfeasance of releasing time-served illegal alien prisoners back into the community, instead of deporting them. Same for issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

I would have thought by now that you would have assimilated a modicum of information about the ravages of illegal immigration. Beginning with the County’s 1992 study about the costs of illegal immigration, this report set L.A. County's annual illegal immigration costs at $1.43 billion. After accounting for $904 million in estimated tax payments to all levels of government by the County's 700,000 adult illegal immigrants, this amounted to a net deficit of $526 million, or $1.00 in revenue for each $1.58 of expenditure. On a County level, for every dollar of tax revenue generated by illegals to L.A. County government, they consumed $10.28 in social services. For sure the costs for illegals have metastasized since 1992. It’s unbelievable that L.A. County spent $340 million in 2002 on emergency health care for illegal immigrants. Is this your idea of “payback”?

The word “illegal” isn’t difficult to pronounce, and it’s real easy to understand. It simply means to break the law. School kids understand this word, probably from early-on. If they’re taught that stealing a toy from a store or playmate is not only morally wrong, but against the law, they’ve learned what “illegal” means. How then is it possible when becoming adults, that some grown-ups deal with illegal immigration as a means to evade the fundamental understanding of the word and its concept? Why do some federal, state, & municipal legislators euphemize the meaning of “illegal” just to throw-in with victimhood buffs and sundry hustlers in the perpetual grievance industry? Why have advocates of illegal immigration so badly confused civil rights with special rights? Never mind that:

• It’s against the law to enter this country illegally, or work here.
  

• It’s against the law for American companies to hire illegals.
  

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that illegal aliens have a devastating negative impact upon low-skilled Americans looking for work.
  

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reports that from 1979 to 2001, the real earnings of men without high-school diplomas fell 28 percent, and the flood of illegal competition deserves much of the blame.
  

• Both the California Division of Labor and the GAO reported in 1999 that there were two farm workers for every agricultural job in California. This glut of farm workers had depressed agricultural wages over the past twenty years, in inflation adjusted terms, by 20%, and spawned deplorable working conditions.
  

• Illegal immigration is costing California taxpayers $5.9 billion (and climbing) annually.
  

** Regarding the “big giant” that you referred to during your speech at the 1997 Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. We’re frequently told by messianic rejuvenators to stop complaining about illegal immigration since illegal immigrants put food on our tables, - supposedly because Americans are incapable of providing food for themselves. In reality, illegal immigration is the real “big giant”; - an uninvited 600 lb. gorilla that sits in our living rooms and siphons-off ever-increasing amounts of desperately needed infrastructural resources for our own citizens. It’s intolerable that California is on the verge of financial collapse, yet we’re forced to subsidize illegal aliens to the tune of $5.9 billion annually, and climbing. 

Abraham Lincoln nailed it when he said, “It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but can't fool all the people all the time.” The age of American innocence with illegal immigration has ended, and now it’s our turn. Tick tick tick tick.

Ya basta,

Michael Scott