AMERICAN LAW MANDATES

By: Carolyn Alvarez- Roland Hernandez is your average working- class American. He works full time, six days a week, sometimes up to 12 hours a day. As a repair man, he is comfortable speaking to people of all educational backgrounds and has traveled through several Houston neighborhoods-the rich, the poor and those in between It was in through his line of work that he discovered a need for social change.  Through conversations with disabled war veterans and the elderly, he came up with an idea to save social security and better assist returning veterans, something he says Republicans would favor.

“The problem is the federal government is broke,” said Hernandez.  “There is no money, so I found a solution.”

An immigration reform is the solution, he said. “I created an immigration reform bill that is going to create a lot of money for the nation, so much money that we can help provide for the needs of the elderly and disabled war veterans,” Hernandez  said. Hernandez plans to ask Congress for a one-year grace period where immigrants will be granted a temporary work visa.  The revenue will come straight from the work visas, which is a selling point for both major political parties.

“It’s not going to come out of the federal government’s pocket; it’s not going to come out of the tax payers’ pocket; the immigrant is going to pay for it,” he said. Local state governments, he said, would benefit with creation of new jobs, if such visa were every allowed for temporary citizenship. The economy would experience a boost and perhaps raise enough money to pay for the national debt, he said.The pricing of the work visas, according to Hernandez, would depend on age and marital status.  He said buying work visas are a safer alternative to “coyotes,” smugglers who warrant no guarantees.  His focus is to inform the public of his idea.  He says the only way to pass his proposal would be by unifying supporters.

To unite Americans politically, Hernandez is growing a grassroots movement – one, he says, that  can create social change through the power of numerous supporters.
“It’s going to take the people to stand up and take our country back.  We can’t rely on the politicians and the parties,” he said.  “As Americans we have to rise up as one man; a corporate body.”

Hernandez speaks to anyone who will listen.  He says both parties have shown an interest in his proposal and actively rallies volunteers to propel the movement. “I’d hate to use the word bipartisan, because it’s got a bad rep now,” he said.  “What I want to call it is a bill for the American people and for America.”
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Hernandez, who lives in Houston, saw firsthand how his dad, a World War II veteran, received substandard healthcare in his last years battling Alzheimer’s. His dad’s low-income status prevented him from affording a higher quality of care. It was a problem Hernandez knew affected other senior citizens and veterans. But in a cash-strapped country with a rising deficit, Hernandez knew that there was no money to tap into to funnel towards the care and well-being of the nation’s seniors and vets. Frustrated by the situation, Hernandez saw another issue that equally frustrated many people — illegal immigration.

Suddenly, a wild idea started to form in Hernandez’s head. What if every undocumented immigrant was required to get documented and pay for a work visa? And depending on how many undocumented immigrants live in a particular state, the federal government would have to share a percentage of that revenue from the work visas with the state? In turn, that money would be used by the federal government to shore up social security and provide better health care for disabled war veterans. States would be required to use the money towards maintaining vigilance on nursing homes making sure staff and facilities met state standards.

Hernandez has been working on his idea for the last two years and talking about it to anyone who will listen. In that time, he has fleshed it out to the point that he now refers to it as The USA Work Visa Bill. In his bill, he’s lays out in no-nonsense terms the bill’s conditions: Every undocumented immigrant must get documented, pay for a work visa (he says $20,000), be afforded the opportunity to get a driver’s license that will be marked noting that the driver is an undocumented immigrant and be given English and speech classes.

Hernandez reasons that if this is accomplished it will make the nation more secure because there will be an official count of undocumented immigrants, lessen the chance of racial profiling by law enforcement, increase the quality of immigrant labor with the English classes and finally get their labor paying into social security.
The benefits to the country, according to Hernandez, are the states will share in the revenue generated by undocumented immigrants, the nation will be safer because undocumented immigrants will be recognized and authorities will know who they are, and veteran health care and social security funding will be improved.

After five years, Hernandez envisions undocumented immigrants, who have not broken the law, will receive sponsorship from their state for a green card that can be applied towards full citizenship.

It’s an ambitious idea that Hernandez feels the more who know about it the more who might just agree with him. To that end, he’s created a web site, Citizens for Saving America, that lays out the specifics of the bill and a plea for people to contact their congressmen.
“It’s just a win-win situation for our seniors, our vets and our nation,” declares Hernandez.

A new study by the Austin-based Immigration Reform Coalition of Texas estimates that illegal immigration costs the state $4.5 billion to $6 billion a year, an amount mostly spent on educating their children.

But the study?s methodology was called flawed by the liberal Migration Policy Institute and the Center for Public Policy Priorities, as well as the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund.

Written by consultant James Bernsen ? who did a similar study in 2006 for the conservative Lone Star Foundation ? the report found that the costs of educating children of unauthorized immigrants aren?t offset by the estimated $1 billion a year in tax revenues the state collects from their parents, making such families a burden to the state.

?A perfect picture will continue to be impossible as long as state bureaucrats intentionally refuse to collect appropriate data on the numbers of illegal immigrants using Texas government services, particularly education,? the study said.

State Rep. John Zerwas, R-Houston, has introduced a bill that would require state agencies to report ?the cost of services and benefits provided to unlawfully present immigrants.? House Bill 276 was heard in committee this week along with a host of other immigration-related bills.

Though Bernsen agrees that ?poor statistics hamper all studies of the costs of illegal immigration,? Maria Grace Martinez of the Immigration Reform Coalition defends his study as ?a good place to start.?

The study, which also looks at higher education, health and criminal justice costs, doesn?t distinguish between immigrant children who are in the state illegally and U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. It also doesn?t consider the federal income taxes, Social Security taxes or gasoline taxes they pay.

But it found that the tax revenue unauthorized immigrants contribute ?wipes out the cost of everything but education.?

?We spend almost $8,000 per student per year on average,? Bernsen said. ?You could argue it?s higher because they use more bilingual services.?

That?s a risky assumption ?not based in reality,? said Luis Figueroa, MALDEF?s legislative staff attorney in San Antonio, adding, ?Even though they are here, they avoid government services and government agencies.?

Also, unauthorized immigrants benefit the economy by providing cheap labor that keeps consumer costs down, Bernsen acknowledges.

The study leaves other things out, said Randy Capps, a demographer and senior policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and Eva DeLuna Castro, a budget analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin group that advocates for poor Texans.

First, they note, the state doesn?t completely fund public education. Property taxes collected by local districts mainly pay that bill, and unauthorized immigrants pay into that system as property owners or renters. They also pay the gasoline tax, one-fourth of which goes to schools, and sales taxes on most purchases.

?Every individual costs more than they pay in taxes,? Capps said. ?That?s true for every state. ? It?s likely that unauthorized families cost the state a little more.? But, he said, Bernsen misses ?the bigger picture of the contributions of the immigrant to the economy.?

?Thinking of kids as a cost is taking the short view. In the longer view ? it?s a cost that will pay itself off in the future,? Capps said.

DeLuna Castro agreed, pointing out that federal income and payroll taxes get funneled back to the state in various forms, including Medicaid and migrant education programs.

For Zerwas, such concerns are all the more reason to keep records.

?Let?s get our arms around the data,? the legislator said. ?It?s more important to me that the state promotes sound policy on sound data. That?s all I?m really interested in.?