Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Los Angeles Community

By
Volume 2, Number 2 (Winter 1991-1992)
Issue theme: "Getting past the immigration taboo - an international perspective"

It is imperative not only that nations learn to live in peace with justice for all but that we also learn how to relate ourselves to our natural surroundings in such a way as to stay alive and prosper. We cannot afford to continue to make war, to tolerate oppression, to allow the gap between rich and poor to persist. But neither can we indiscrimi-nately and indefinitely plunder the planet for its resources, overpopulate it with people, and pollute our air and water without paying the terrible consequences in human misery. If we are to have a future at all, we must at least learn the elementary requirements of biological survival.

- Kenneth Cauthen, Christian Biopolitics,

(Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 106

Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Los Angeles County Budget

In an April 1992 memo to the Board of Supervisors, Los Angeles County Administrator Richard Dixon outlined the impact of illegal immigration on county finances. After indicating that border apprehensions have climbed to pre-Immigration and Control Act (1986) levels, Dixon estimated that the net cost to LA County of services provided to undocumented aliens had grown from $207.2 million in Fiscal Year 1989-90 to $276.2 million in FY 1990-91. The estimated Federal costs increased from $57.7 million in FY 1988-89 to $140.5 million in FY 1990-91, and could reach $533 million by 2000.

A large portion of the impact, Dixon reported, was due to provision of AFDC payments to children of ineligible alien parents. He also listed the costs of county health services for births to undocumented alien mothers in FY 1990-91. Of the 44,001 births in county and contract hospitals, 28,829 births (65.5 percent) were to undocumented alien mothers at a cost of $28.48 million.