The answer is: yes and no. Yes, because it’s eminently logical. No, because a) politicians will never do it, and b) there isn’t enough foreign aid to Mexico to come even close.
I thought about the question recently when I saw a comment somewhere suggesting that we address the cost of treating illegal immigrants at emergency rooms by sending Mexico a bill. Well, obviously we can’t do that, I thought, but why not deduct it from their foreign aid?
After all, I think someone mentioned recently that California might have a small budget problem. Running in the tens of billions of dollars. So why not determine how much money California spends on illegal immigrants, deduct that from Mexico’s foreign aid, and send the money to California instead? (And of course we could do the same for other border states like Arizona, whose budgets are also weighed down with spending for illegals.) So I ran some numbers this morning.
How much are we giving Mexico? We’re proposing around a billion:
The Obama administration is freeing up $85.4 million to help Mexico fight drug cartels, settling a debate over whether to withhold the money because of allegations the Mexican military is carrying out murders and other crimes.
. . . .
Calling Mexico’s military justice system “manifestly ineffective,” Leahy said that neither Mexico nor the State Department “has treated human rights abuses by the military, which is engaging in an internal police function it is ill- suited for, as a priority.”
Still, Leahy said he has backed more than $1 billion in aid for Mexico since June 2008 and will support more in the future to help solve its “complex” challenges.
What do illegal immigrants cost California? FAIR had a study estimating about $10 billion a year.
That’s ten times what we’re talking about giving Mexico. And that’s just the cost to California alone.
Guess we can’t deduct all our costs.
Still, even though it is politically impossible, and would make only a dent in the cost of illegals to this country, it would perfect sense to cut off all aid to Mexico while our states are running deficits in part to care for Mexican citizens.
Maybe that would give Mexico an incentive to do something about the problem.
Nah, that makes too much sense.