gaithersblog.net

…with a few interesting articles I’ve read over the past few days:

The first few are from the Examiner, and written by Kathleen Miller:

• Intersection a hot spot of immigrant frustration
  

  Nonetheless, throughout 2007, 50 to 80 workers a day looked for jobs at the Exxon and 7-Eleven at the intersection [of University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road], roughly the same number who signed up for work at [Casa’s day laborer] center. Now, with the downturn in the economy, those numbers have doubled, according to Hispanic community police liaison Officer Luis Hurtado.

• Immigrant groups push for $15M to speed up citizenship process
  

  Immigrant advocates are lobbying Washington area state and local governments, plus private organizations, for $15 million to help legal permanent residents in the region become citizens.

  “I am just wondering why this is necessary — my mom got her citizenship without the help of any centers,” Virginia Del. Jeff Frederick said. “I feel like, if we’ve got $15 million, let’s go build some roads.”

• Gaithersburg considering street cameras
  

  Gaithersburg leaders may turn to surveillance cameras on city streets and license plate scanner systems that check plates regardless of suspicion of guilt.

• Maryland considers adding tolls on I-270, Beltway
  

  State transportation officials said they are studying the use of tolls on two Montgomery-area highways to combat congestion in the rapidly growing region, and hope to meet with the public about the potential projects in the fall.

• Budget troubles to curtail Montgomery planning panel’s agenda
  

  Budget woes will force Montgomery’s Planning Department to delay or abandon county environmental protection initiatives, traffic-relief studies and some of the transportation and zoning planning necessary in rapidly growing Bethesda next year, planning officials said Tuesday.

In the Frederick News-Post, Sarah Fortney writes, Walkersville — English: official language:

Town commissioners voted unanimously to designate English as Walkersville’s official language.

A Gazette-written story in the Washington Post gives a little more background on Gaithersburg’s new Enterprise Zone:

The move, made to enhance economic development and job creation in targeted revitalization areas, is to help one of Montgomery County’s historic districts. Olde Towne Gaithersburg is the site of the city’s original mercantile district, spurred by the arrival of the B&O Railroad in 1873. The area flourished for decades as shops and businesses served the needs of the local agricultural-based economy. However, in the 1930’s a six-lane bridge, erected to address a rail safety issue, virtually obscured the view of Olde Towne and distanced potential shoppers from the area, according to state and county information.

Actually, I don’t recall the old bridge, which was torn down and replaced in the 1980s, having six lanes.

Finally, Raymond McCaffrey writes in the Washington Post, Man to Serve 10 Years for 2006 Crash That Killed 2:

A 27-year-old man pleaded guilty yesterday and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a drunken-driving accident in Howard County in 2006 that killed a Marine and his date.

In imposing the sentence, Circuit Court Judge Louis A. Becker said he considered that Eduardo Raul Morales-Soriano is an illegal immigrant and that his blood alcohol level was four times the legal limit on the night of the crash.

The Baltimore Sun also has a story on this, written by Tyeesha Dixon:

The sentence imposed by Becker exceeds suggested state guidelines for the charges. The judge said he made his decision “primarily because of the high alcohol read.” Morales-Soriano’s blood-alcohol level was 0.32 percent, four times the legal limit, at the time of the crash, police have said.

Becker said he also considered an unusual facet of the case: Morales-Soriano, a native of Mexico, was living in the country illegally.

”This court cannot ignore that the defendant has violated the law with his illegal presence here,” Becker said.

Gaithersblog readers will likely recall this story from a couple of weeks ago, about Casa de Maryland’s unease with Frederick County’s cooperation with the Federal immigration authorities. One of the central examples cited by Casa to highlight what they perceived as the harm this would do was the arrest of illegal immigrant Alejandro Rocha and the difficulties this created for his companion, Rosibel David, and their child.

According to a report by Sherry Greenfield published today in the Frederick Gazzete:

However, the new initiative, known as 287G, had nothing to do with Rocha’s arrest, The Gazette has learned from law enforcement officials. It was the Maryland State Police, which does not participate in the initiative.

‘‘This goes to show what I’ve been saying, that Casa de Maryland has been too quick to judge, and that Casa de Maryland has been quick to point the finger at the sheriff,” said Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins (R). ‘‘When you don’t have anything, it’s easy to throw out the race card because it sells newspapers.”

The details of what really happened are a little bit uncertain, as the Gazette has not yet been able to reconcile some differences between the stories told by the State Police and Federal immigration authorities. But the lack of involvement by the Sheriff seems undisputed. The initial misinformation appears to have stemmed from confusion on the part of the driver of the stopped car, who simply assumed that the arresting officers were Sheriff’s deputies. Casa de Maryland and the NAACP appear to have taken this at face value.

The Manhattan Institute just released a study on Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States (PDF available here). Quoting the Executive Summary:

This report introduces a quantitative index that measures the degree of similarity between native- and foreign-born adults in the United States. It is the ability to distinguish the latter group from the former that we mean when we use the term “assimilation.” The Index of Immigrant Assimilation relies on Census Bureau data available in some form since 1900 and as current as the year before last. The index reveals great diversity in the experiences of individual immigrant groups, which differ from each other almost as much as they differ from the native-born. They vary significantly in the extent to which their earnings have increased, their rate of learning the English language, and progress toward citizenship. Mexican immigrants, the largest group and the focus of most current immigration policy debates, have assimilated slowly, but their experience is not representative of the entire immigrant population.

Collective assimilation rates are lower than they were a century ago, although no lower than they have been in recent decades. And this is true despite the fact that recent immigrants have arrived less assimilated than their predecessors and in very large numbers. In addition to country of origin, the Index categorizes groups on the basis of date of arrival, age, and place of residence. Some groups have done far better or worse than the Index as a whole; Assimilation also varies considerably across metropolitan areas.

Here are some of the Index’s significant findings:

• The degree of similarity between the native- and foreign-born, although low by historical standards, has held steady since 1990. Assimilation declined during the 1980s, remained stable through the 1990s, and has actually increased slightly over the past few years.

Beyond presenting a snapshot of the degree of similarity between the native- and foreign-born, the assimilation index can be used to track the progress of immigrants who arrived in the United States at a common point in time. This simple extension shows that the relative stability of immigrant assimilation since 1990 masks two important and countervailing trends.

• Newly arrived immigrants of the early 21st century have assimilation index values lower than the newly arrived immigrants of the early 20th century. Growth in the immigrant population usually lowers the assimilation index because newly arrived immigrants drag down the average for the group as a whole. This phenomenon can be seen between 1900 and 1920 and again in the 1980s. The stability of the assimilation index since 1990 is therefore remarkable in light of the rapid growth of the immigrant population, which doubled between 1990 and 2006.
• Immigrants of the past quarter-century have assimilated more rapidly than their counterparts of a century ago, even though they are more distinct from the native population upon arrival. The increase in the rate of assimilation among recently arrived immigrants explains why the overall index has remained stable, even though the immigrant population has grown rapidly.
• Yet the current level of assimilation remains lower than it was at any point during the early 20th century wave of immigration.

This study is of course being written about extensively in the press, and of course is being spun in multiple directions.

In the Washington Post, N.C. Aizenman writes Study Says Foreigners In U.S. Adapt Quickly:

Immigrants of the past quarter-century have been assimilating in the United States at a notably faster rate than did previous generations, according to a study released today.

Modern-day immigrants arrive with substantially lower levels of English ability and earning power than those who entered during the last great immigration wave at the turn of the 20th century. The gap between today’s foreign-born and native populations remains far wider than it was in the early 1900s and is particularly large in the case of Mexican immigrants, the report said.

The report found, however, that the speed with which new arrivals take on native-born traits has increased since the 1990s. As a result, even though the foreign population doubled during that period, the newcomers did not drive down the overall assimilation index of the foreign-born population. Instead, it held relatively steady from 1990 to 2006.

In the New York Sun, Howard Husock, vice president for Policy Research at the Manhattan Institute, writes an article headlined The Assimilation Factor:

It is a mistake, though, to think that Americans are more worried about who has a green card than they are about immigrant assimilation, a less discussed matter. The idea that immigrants should, and can, become Americans has been a powerful one, a reflection of the fact that ours is a society based on values and laws, rather than a single faith and a common blood.

Lately, discussing immigrant assimilation has become less than acceptable in polite company out of a concern that assimilation imposes Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture on others. But the majority thinks that newcomers should learn English, which is endorsed by 87% of Americans in one Rasmussen survey, and become American citizens. This makes clear that, notwithstanding the affection for multiculturalism among elites, average Americans still believe in the melting pot.

But the most striking finding is much less positive. The current overall assimilation level for all immigrant groups combined, measured on a scale of zero to 100, is, at 28, lower now than it was during the great immigration wave of the early 20th century, when it never went below 32. What’s more, the immigrant group that is by far the largest is also the least assimilated. On the zero-to-100 scale, Mexicans — 11 million emigrated to America between 1980 and 2006 — score only 13.

In Newsday, Olivia Winslow writes Study finds Salvadorans among least assimilated:

Salvadorans, according to the report’s assimilation index, score just above Mexicans and behind other groups.

To the Rev. Allan Ramirez, pastor of the Brookville Reformed Church and an immigrant advocate, it’s easy to see why. He said many Central Americans and Mexicans come here “at the entry level. They come in as dishwashers, they come in as landscapers … They are unlike the economic elite, who come in with bank accounts in Switzerland and Miami,” holding U.S. visas. So it takes the working poor “longer to get into the mainstream.”

Patrick Young, program director of the Central American Refugee Center in Brentwood, said about 80 percent of Salvadorans are in the United States legally, most speak English and most have been here for more than 15 years. Many, he said, had progressed from being day laborers to small business owners.

Young was skeptical of the report’s focus, calling it “pseudoscience” that amounts to which immigrant group “we love more.”

Gaithersburg is, of course, also a popular destination for Salvadorans.

Eunice Moscoso of Cox News Service writes via Deseret News, Slowdown found in assimilation of immigrants:

“The nation’s capacity to integrate new immigrants is strong,” said Jacob Vigdor, an associate professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University.

But the progress “is not present for all groups and in particular, it’s not present among some of the Latin American immigrants that are at the heart of the immigration debate these days,” he added.

Vigdor said there could be many reasons why Mexicans have lower rates of assimilation, including that they are closer to their home country, they have more chances to speak Spanish, and they mostly come for economic reasons as opposed to immigrants who are fleeing dangerous regimes and fear going back. For example, Vietnamese immigrants had a strong incentive to accept the United States as their homeland, he said.

In addition, many Mexican immigrants are in the United States illegally and therefore are unable to meet many of the criteria for assimilation.

Haya El Nasser writes in USA Today, Study: Some immigrants assimilate faster:

Some immigrants, such as Canadians, fit in well culturally but not in civic involvement because they don’t seek U.S. citizenship, Vigdor’s report says. Mexicans assimilate better culturally than Vietnamese but rank lower economically.

Mexicans have the lowest civic assimilation of any immigrant group, the report says.

“The long-term question is how do the children and grandchildren of immigrants do?” says Jeffrey Passel, demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. “Those are the groups who really do the integrating.”

Passel says 30% of all immigrants are in the USA illegally.

That may be the long-term question, but I guess that one would also want to know about the immediate impact on existing communities with large, persistent new-immigrant populations, especially those which are slow to assimilate. With this dip in the assimilation index approaching the two-decade mark, the fact that the grandchildren of immigrants might be better-assimilated is little help in staving off long-term effects.

An unsigned post in the Free Exchange blog on the Economist’s website mentions this study in passing,

That the pull factor of economic conditions is key has important implications for the prospects of the immigrant population. A new study from the Manhattan Institute has found that today’s immigrants are assimilating—in economic, cultural, and civic terms—much faster than did previous immigrant cohorts.

But more interesting in that post is a reference to another article:

Writing a VoxEU, Drew Keeling explains that during past immigration episodes, it was widely assumed that physical barriers (such as the cost of travel) were the only things holding back an unstoppable flood of migrants from Europe. But this assessment may be false. As Mr Keeling notes, trans-Atlantic passenger volume had far more to do with economic conditions in America than with the price of a boat ticket.

Quoting Keeling:

My findings suggest that the uncertainties and hazards of working in distant foreign lands were probably greater deterrents to mass migration than travel costs were in the past or legal barriers are now. From the deserts of Arizona to the coastline of Spain, risks and business cycles are still important factors influencing international migration nowadays. They may therefore turn out to be even more important in shaping migration levels than border controls, which are often problematic, hotly debated, and difficult to enforce.

One might wonder about the historical level of risk associated with immigration, legal or otherwise, to, say, Montgomery County.

Sherry Greenfield reports in the Gazette, Casa: Checking immigration status costs Frederick County $3.2 million:

Immigration supporters released a report today placing an annual price tag of $3.2 million on a program that allows sheriff’s deputies to check the immigration status of everyone taken to the Frederick County Adult Detention Center.

The 27-page report [link added –gb] released by Casa De Maryland disputes claims by Frederick County Chuck Jenkins (R) that the 287G program costs the county nothing, and that funding for the program comes from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Gazette story of course does not directly quote anyone who disagrees with CASA.

Nicholas C. Stern writes in the Frederick News-Post, Immigration enforcement: at what cost?

Rosibel David, a Hispanic immigrant living in Frederick, is alone with a 5-year-old child after her companion was arrested for not being able to present proof of residency about a week ago. Her companion was taken into custody following a traffic stop on his way to a job interview.

Since then, she and her child have been evicted from their apartment because she cannot afford her $900 rent, so she is staying with friends, David said.

David was brought to tears while speaking at CASA de Maryland’s press conference to unveil a report about a Frederick County program to detain and deport unauthorized immigrants. She said she has been unable to retrieve information about her partner’s case.

Well past the middle of this 1200-word article, there is one note of disagreement:

Frederick County Commissioner Charles Jenkins said he believed people who spoke at the press conference had good intentions.

Jenkins said, however, he did not support their calls to bring an end to the 287(g) agreement.

“I support the program and the sheriff enthusiastically,” he said.

He challenged figures cited by CASA de Maryland in its report. By housing some inmates from throughout Maryland for ICE over the past year, the sheriff was able to bring in $500,000 and help close the gap on the county’s $1.2 million budget deficit, Jenkins said.

Also, more than half the officers deputized as a result of the agreement are corrections officers, he said, so the percentage of officers in the field might be more in line with other jurisdictions.

Furthermore, charges of racial profiling are easy to make, but hard to prove, Jenkins said.

“It looked like they cherry-picked statistics to make their point,” he said.

Pamela Constable writes in the Washington Post, Immigrants Feel Less Welcome in Frederick, at least stating the Sheriff’s case near the beginning of the article:

“The single biggest threat to our country is the immigration problem. We cannot continue to absorb this population or we will end up in collapse like a Third World country,” said Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, whose officers have identified 18 illegal immigrants in the past two weeks after traffic stops or other incidents. “We are not going out in a white van with a big net, but we are getting the criminal element of the illegal population out of Frederick County.”

Local opponents of the measures, including black, white and Hispanic residents, say the crackdown and other proposed actions smack of racism and political grandstanding. They say Latinos have been welcomed by Frederick’s businesses as a source of cheap labor. Since 1990, the county’s Hispanic population has more than tripled, from fewer than 5,000 to more than 15,000, growing to about 5 percent of the county’s inhabitants.

Kelly Brewington writes in the Baltimore Sun, Policy raises ire in W. Md.:

Kerry O’Brien, legal director at CASA, said immigrants have become scapegoats in Frederick and in other places where restrictive local immigration policies have been passed, such as Prince William County, Va., where stringent immigration enforcement has ignited fierce debate.

“Frederick is definitely the farthest out in its sentiment against immigrants and basically showing little appreciation to the contributions that immigrants have made, such as in the construction boom,” she said. “No one complains when immigrants contribute to the economy, but all of a sudden, people have become organized around blaming any particular problem on immigrants.” During the question-and-answer portion of the news conference, Frederick resident Richard Schultz stunned immigration-rights advocates by launching into personal complaints about illegal immigration in the county.

“What do you say to the burden on the typical American worker whose wages are cut under by illegal aliens?” he said. “Illegal aliens should be getting out of the country, going to the back of the line and doing things the right way.”

According to a survey done by the Inter-American Development Bank

Fewer Latin Americans are sending money home regularly from the United States to their homelands, according to the results of a survey on remittances commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) presented today in Washington, DC.

The poll, conducted in February 2008 among 5,000 Latin American adults living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, found that only 50% of the respondents were still sending money on a regular basis to their families, down from 73% in a similar poll conducted in 2006.

The principal causes for this drop cited by migrants were the slowdown in the U.S. economy and the harsher climate against immigration in this country, said MIF General Manager Donald F. Terry, who presented the survey’s result in a news conference held at the National Press Club.

An article by Julia Preston in the International Herald-Tribune adds:

A large majority of the Latino immigrants in the survey — whether or not they were illegal — said they experienced increasing hostility as a result of U.S. government and state efforts to curb illegal immigration and punish employers who hire unauthorized immigrant workers. In the survey, 61 percent of Latinos who were American citizens and 66 percent of those who were legal immigrants said that discrimination had become a major problem for them.

As a result of the difficulties, the numbers of immigrants who said they were considering going back to live in their home countries increased notably. Among immigrants who have been here less than five years, 49 percent said they were thinking of returning home, while only 41 percent said they planned to remain in the United States. Over all, just under one-third of the immigrants said they were thinking of leaving this country.

Not that they are actually leaving yet:

But Latino immigrant workers who participated in focus groups as part of the survey said they were not ready to leave the United States quite yet, said Sergio Bendixen, the Miami-based pollster who conducted the survey. Instead of going home, the immigrants said they were taking jobs at lower wages or sometimes working two jobs to try to maintain their income, he said.

A story by Miriam Jordan in the Wall Street Journal (unfortunately subscription-only) explains further (although not in so many words) that the situation is likely driving an increase illegal overcrowding:

In Maryland, for example, the value of remittances sent home in 2008 is projected to drop 11% compared to 2006, according to the bank. Joel Fernandez, who had steady construction work for five years, says that until late last year he earned about $1,400 a month; he sent a third of that to his two daughters in Peru. Now that he works with less regularity, “I am sending home money when I can,” says the 39-year-old, who was seeking work on Tuesday at a day-labor center run by the Casa de Maryland advocacy group in Silver Spring. To save on rent and free up money to send home, he’s recruiting three more immigrants to move into his apartment — already occupied by three men — to split the $1,000 monthly payment. “I have to provide for my girls,” he says. “That’s what I came here for.”

Ricardo Mejia, a day-laborer organizer at Casa, says that workers who once only accepted a full day’s work at $15 an hour are now accepting a morning or afternoon job at $10. “They’ll take any small job to earn cash for food and housing,” he says. “A lot of people aren’t managing to send money home.”

Another story, this one by Eunice Moscoso in the Austin American-Statesman, adds:

Sergio Bendixen, a veteran pollster whose Miami-based company conducted the survey, said […] that a growing “anti-immigrant” sentiment in the United States is a major cause of the drop in number of immigrants sending money home.

He cited state laws and local ordinances that have cracked down on illegal immigration such as a well-publicized one in Hazleton, Pa., that he said created a climate in which immigrants felt insecure about their futures.

“They feel that they are not welcome in America anymore,” Bendixen said. “They don’t know whether they will be able to work next month or whether they will to be able to rent an apartment … so many become conservative about how they spend their money.”

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports lower levels of immigration, said that Latin American governments should stop looking at exporting their labor force as a source of development income.

Krikorian said the survey shows that anti-illegal immigration ordinances are working.

A PowerPoint presentation of the survey’s results is available from the IADB here.

Y’all might remember this post about an illegal immigrant who is alleged to have stabbed another man in the sternum while on bail, and later got picked up in Prince William County, where he was awaiting extradition to Montgomery County. In today’s Examiner, Freeman Klopott and Kathleen Miller write:

Calderon-Melendez was arrested in Virginia last month and is now fighting to stay there until he’s deported, he told The Examiner from the Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center.

“If I’m here, there’s a better chance they’ll send me back to El Salvador. My wife needs my help and I’m the only one who can help her,” he said in Spanish, adding he worries for his family’s safety because he left the MS-13 gang in El Salvador shortly before he slipped across the U.S.-Mexico border last year.

But police and federal officials say even if the charges had stemmed from crimes allegedly committed in Prince William, he’d likely still serve prison time before being deported.

For those of you who haven’t been reading the comments, Freeman Klopott writes:

A Montgomery County-based MS-13 gang member and illegal immigrant who allegedly stabbed a man almost to death after being released on bond following an earlier attack is now in custody in Prince William County, where his immigration status may complicate his extradition.

Milton Calderon-Melendez, 25, of El Salvador, is awaiting extradition from Prince William to Montgomery to face charges of assault and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. Meanwhile, as Prince William’s policy dictates, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have already been informed of his illegal presence in the U.S.

The “earlier attack” referred to occurred near Odend’hal and Lost Knife — I imagine at the Lakeforest Transit Center — Calderon-Melendez is accused of punching a 15-year-old in the face, and was charged with 2nd degree assault. For those of you who think that the police tell us everything that goes on in their crime summaries, I have scoured my Gaithersblog postings from that time, as well as re-reading the police crime reports. I’ve not been able to find any previous mention of this incident. If anyone can find a contemporaneous record, please let me know.

On Aug. 20, he and Jose Gagoberto Flores Cardova allegedly assaulted Cardova’s roommate, known only as Salguero in court documents, in their 8200 Iron Clad Court apartment in Gaithersburg.

According to police, Cardova beat Salguero in the head with a baseball bat and Calderon-Melendez stabbed him in the sternum with a knife. Police found the bloody bat and a broken knife in the house after the two had already fled.

I did find a reference to this incident in the MCPD crime summaries. It says:

An aggravated assault occurred the Monday 8/20, time unknown in the 8200 block of Ironclad Court.

Keep this in mind the next time you see the words “aggravated assault”. Just for reference, the charges filed in that incident were attempted 2nd degree murder, 1st degree assault and conspiracy to commit 1st degree assault, 2nd degree assault and conspiracy to commit 2nd degree assault.

Now, a major point of the Examiner article is that Calderon-Melendez was here illegally, and if Montgomery County were more aggressive about checking immigration status in these cases, the second assault may never have happened. I don’t disagree with this point. However, I think that it is something of a distraction from the real problem, which is the extent to which people charged with crimes like this are routinely walking out of jail with a pittance for bond. In this one case perhaps the immigration issue could have forced the Court’s hand and kept them from letting Calderon-Melendez go. But citizen criminals are spinning around in this same revolving door on a daily basis, and people continue to be hurt because of it. In my mind, this is at least as much a criminal justice issue as an immigration issue..

In Tuesday’s Washington Post, Pamela Constable and Lisa Rein write, To Illegal Immigrants, Md. Feeling Less Friendly:

Public anger against illegal immigrants, already entrenched in parts of Northern Virginia, is seeping into Maryland. With legislators facing unprecedented demands to take action, fears of a crackdown are spreading among illegal immigrants in a state that has been more tolerant of them.

A record 20 bills targeting illegal immigrants have been introduced in the state legislature this session. Although none of the bills is expected to survive, their supporters are far more vocal and organized than in the past, and the movement has gained recent support in Maryland communities that include Mount Rainier, Gaithersburg and Taneytown.

The article never explains the Gaithersburg reference, but I’ll guess that they are lumping the day laborer and anti-solicitation ordinance situation into this even though that issue is not immigration-specific.

“Everywhere you go now, the first thing they ask you for is papers,” Juan Perez, 28, a Central American construction worker, said outside a gas station in Langley Park one recent morning. “We do the work faster and cheaper, but no one wants us now. I haven’t sent any money home to my family since December, and I can barely pay to sleep in my friend’s apartment.”

Just across University Boulevard, a battered sedan with Virginia tags pulled up in front of a convenience store. The driver, a carpenter from Guatemala named Raul Romano, 40, said he and his family had recently fled Prince William County, their home for eight years, after it enacted a law allowing police to question immigrants about their legal status.

And speaking of Prince William County, N.C. Aizenman writes in the Washington Post, Immigration Agency Arrests 34 Workers At Concrete Firm:

Federal immigration authorities converged on a Prince William County construction company just before sunrise yesterday, arresting 34 Latin American nationals for being in the country illegally.

Kelly Brewington writes in this morning’s Sun:

As the number of illegal immigrants swells nationwide, state and local governments are grappling with a fiercely debated question: Are illegal immigrants a burden on or a benefit to local economies?

The answer: It depends on whom you ask.

States, demographers and interest groups have tried to quantify the fiscal costs versus the benefits of illegal immigration, but there’s no consensus on the answers. Those concerned about illegal immigration conclude new arrivals are a drain on public services, citing the growth of the school-age population and the mounting ranks of the uninsured. Meanwhile, others contend that illegal immigrants swell state coffers by paying millions in taxes and fees without receiving many services available to legal residents.

Brad Botwin, director of Help Save Maryland, sent me a link to the following video. Now, the titling over the video is a little more inflammatory than what I would normally be comfortable with, but I thought that the video itself was worth posting so that y’all could see it. There’s a big difference, I think, between reading about these rallies and seeing one.

If you don’t see the video above, try following this link.