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Do You Support Immigration Reform?

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Do You Support Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants?

The approximate 100,000 illegal immigrants in New Mexico continue to force the state to expend funds on people living in the U.S. illegally.New Mexico spends approximately $717 million per year in fiscal costs to support the illegal immigrants residing in the state, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) 2013 report . Of those funds, which come primarily from taxpayer money, $438 million goes toward K-12 education costs, $54 million goes toward supplemental English teaching efforts, $76 million goes toward prosecuting and policing illegal immigrants, and $108 million go toward heath care and social assistance.As a result, each New Mexico household headed by a U.S.-born citizen pays on average about $1,000 to support people who are in the U.S. illegally. Only about $34 million worth of the financial burden is funded by taxes from illegal immigrants.Additionally, there are an estimated 30,000 U.S.-born children with illegal immigrant parents in New Mexico. Accordingly, New Mexico’s taxpayers pay $11,876 for each child in their public school system.The large number of illegal immigrants in New Mexico has made some citizens unhappy with their state’s policies regarding immigration.“Political leaders have bent over backwards to accommodate and welcome illegal aliens. In fact, New Mexico has gone the extra mile on behalf of illegal aliens, as one of only two states that offers driver's licenses to illegal aliens, making the state not only a magnet for illegal immigration, but also for fraud,” FAIR president Dan Stein said in a statement In February, New Mexico’s House of Representatives voted to repeal the state law that allows illegal immigrants to get a driver’s license. Although the state’s Democrats vowed to fight the repeal, Republican Gov. Susana Martinez said allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses could promote crime and fraud.“These fraud operations involve the trafficking of humans to our state for the purpose of committing crimes; and with no intention to live here, they snatch up our license to take elsewhere, to places unknown and for purposes unknown,” Mike Lonergan, Governor Martinez’s spokesman, said, according to the Albuquerque Journal