Schwarzenegger: Immigrants Not to Blame for California's Downturn

Anti-immigrant forces love to blame California's complex economic troubles on undocumented immigrants, prescribing mass deportation, an end to sanctuary policies, and tougher borders as the one-size-fits-all panacea to west coast troubles.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself, hasn't done much of late to stand up to these falsehoods about his state's economic woes, causing an L.A. Times editorials to criticize him for wandering "between leading and scapegoating." Recently, he decided to balance the budget at the expense of the most vulnerable, low-income legal residence immigrants -- making only a small short-term dent in the massive deficient while setting CA up for larger long-term losses when immigrants have to turn to more expensive emergency services for care. (On a related note, a recent Health Affairs study looking at that the concept of the immigrant "burden" on health services found that the costs per person for non-citizens, both documented and undocumented, was only about half that of native-born citizens.)

Finally, however, the Terminator-turned-Governor has made it clear, in an interview with Fox News, that immigrants are not to blame for California's economic downturn -- the global crash that has impacted everyone is the biggest culprit, though there are other nuanced reasons regarding the state's unsustainable tax system and provision of services. But why bother understanding economics when you can just point fingers and say, "the immigrants done it!"

Schwarzenegger also called for immediate immigration reform, saying that Congressional dickering is "living in denial basically" and not providing the solutions we need now. Changing undocumented immigrants into documented ones through a path to legalization would reap economic gains for the entire country, and California would get a chunk of that change. He particularly emphasized the need for immigration reform for students: the practice of allowing international students to come to the U.S. and get an education, then sending them back, is a brain drain out of the country we can't afford -- they should be putting their smarts to work for us here.

Well played. Now, how about standing up for the maligned little guy and not taking out your economic frustrations on legal resident immigrants by singling them out for deprivation of vital services?

Photo credit: Jim Greenhill