Amnesty comes at a high cost in California.
California State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) is hoping to grant health care coverage to illegal immigrants at the cost of $740 million per year, according to the Senate fiscal analysis.
The bill, proposed last year by Lara, would extend government-subsidized healthcare coverage to 1.5 million people, according to researchers at the University of California Berkeley and UC Los Angeles. That same report attempted to examine the estimated costs of the President’s executive order on immigration, which is on hold due to a court injunction.
Last February, however, legislative analysts said the numbers were too uncertain and could put additional strains on the California budget.
Lara is not giving up and has re-introduced the bill.
If the bill were to pass the state legislature this year and be signed into law, it would increase the cost of illegal immigration to California taxpayers to $26 billion a year, according to a recent study by FAIR. And any new magnets that cause another wave of illegal immigration to California would only increase these costs dramatically.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, illegal immigrants are only paying back in $3.26 billion a year to California in taxes.
In 2014, California added several new programs to benefit illegal immigrants including a low-cost auto insurance program, a new California DREAM loan program at the University of California state system, and $3 million in legal representation to unaccompanied minors.
