Here in Colorado, our governor, Mr. Owens, is threatening to call the legislature back into session this summer to create a ballot measure to deny government services to "illegal immigrants". Below is Jim Spencer's article in the Denver Post, explaining just what services we are currently giving immigrants. I think that we have some very important issues facing us at this time - the war, our dependency on foreign oil, and the environment, for example. Immigration and gay marriage are distractions from the issues that are really threatening us.

6/19/2006
Benefit Fight Much Ado About Nada
By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com

"What on earth ever improved by adding millions of stupid, ugly Mexicans to it?"

As the governor and the General Assembly wrestle over who calls a special legislative session to talk about denying public benefits to illegal immigrants, I looked at my immigration fan mail.

Each time I write on the topic, certain immigration foes prove their xenophobia.

Theirs is rage in search of rationale. These days, the reasoning goes like this:

Colorado must amend its constitution to save hundreds of millions of dollars on public services to illegal immigrants.

Recently, I asked people what they won't have to pay for if voters pass an initiative banning benefits not required by federal law. The list included welfare, education and health care.

I called agencies that provide those services. I asked what they now give illegal immigrants that isn't required by federal code. The answer is nearly nothing.

After the Colorado Supreme Court knocked a benefits-ban initiative off the ballot, GOP Gov. Bill Owens threatened a special legislative session to preserve "one of the most important public-policy debates of our time." Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff warned not to assume that "no services will be affected."

Thing is, the only study done by state experts showed a whopping "service and benefit reduction" of $460,606 a year, mostly for human services. The number comes from an analysis of a failed 2005 House bill that attempted to do what the current initiative envisions.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided the K-12 education piece in 1982. The justices ruled that the Constitution entitles undocumented children to free public schools. What's left is denial of in-state university tuition to the undocumented, a right that doesn't currently exist in Colorado.

Liz McDonough of the Department of Human Services said no one gets food stamps or welfare without proving legal status through federal screening. A fake ID breaks a rule the initiative can't fix.

One of my correspondents claimed some Colorado counties give extra food stamps to children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents. Those kids are citizens. But if counties are slipping their moms and dads extra food stamps, that's fraud - with or without an initiative.

The same goes for Medicaid. "There is only one way illegal immigrants get services," said state Medicaid director Barbara Prehmus. "Those are emergency services." The initiative doesn't change that.

Much of the whining about health care by both sides in the initiative debate may come to nothing. The initiative's lawyer, University of Denver law professor Robert Hardaway, passed along a federal code section (8USC-1211) that allows illegal immigrants to receive "public health assistance for immunizations."

It appears kids probably won't go unvaccinated if the initiative passes, as critics charge. It also appears that my angry e-mailers will continue to pay to vaccinate illegal immigrants, despite their belief that the initiative will keep them from doing so.

For the stingy, the news isn't all bad. Colorado's Joint Budget Committee found that the average annual caseload of legal and illegal immigrants seeking emergency medical care peaked in 2001.

What's more, free "non-emergency" medical care that initiative backers claim is almost universally available to the undocumented is not.

Hardaway complained of undocumented people getting free prescriptions for non-emergency ills. The example he used was the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor.

Even if Hardaway is right, it's hard to see the economic wisdom of denying a guy a $40 bottle of Lipitor when you will be legally required to treat the $40,000 heart attack that might result.

Colorado's Bell Policy Center summed it up this way: "Overall, immigrants pay more in taxes than they ever use in publicly funded health care services."

All of this means one thing: The hot air that could soon fill the Capitol will have more to do with fanatical posturing than fiscal prudence.

Jim Spencer's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.