Since
the federal government collects many taxes from undocumented immigrants,
including social security taxes, for which the federal government has to pay no
benefits, a number of programs have been designed to funnel those revenues
back to the states. Programs like the State
Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) were designed to channel some of
those increased tax revenues to states that are particularly impacted by new
immigrants, to help them deal with increased costs that local tax revenues
might not fully cover, yet the Bush administration and others
have argued for cutting its funding. In fact, federal
policies continue to deny help even for legal immigrants who clearly pay
taxes. A clear example is the failure to include funding for legal
immigrant children
in the recent SCHIP bill approved by Congress.
Recognizing
that the federal government collects taxes from immigrant workers without
providing funds even for federally-mandated health care services, proposed California
SJRX1 asks the Congress and
President of the United States to enact legislation that would provide full
reimbursement for the costs of providing federally mandated health care
services to anyone, regardless of immigration status.
- In
2008, a number of states introduced bills requesting federal reimbursement
for state immigration-related expenses, including Arizona HCM
2011, Minnesota SF
886 and HF
771, Oregon HJM
24, Virginia SJR 120,
and South Carolina HR
4347. New Mexico
successfully passed HJM
3.
- Utah's HB 262,
enacted in March 2008, calls for the Office of
Legislative Research and General Counsel to study all available remedies
the state has for seeking reimbursement from the federal government for
costs incurred from illegal immigration.
