Ammon Blair - Sr. Fellow, Texas Public Policy Foundation Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't know. You get a lot of stuff paid for.
Every state is paying through the nose or illegal aliens,
you know, especially when you take a look at public
education for example, I'd love to know how much we
spend as a state on illegal immigrants and education every year.
But the problem is is our public schools don't bother
to ask your immigration status when you're a student. So

(00:23):
they they kind of, you know, they they probably have
an idea how many of their students are illegals, but
they have no actual headcount. Amon Blair joins us Senior
Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. You have an
idea how much if we were to put everything together
here in Texas, how much we've spent so far?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Good morning, not sir. Unfortunately, the only comprehensive report that
has been published was by Fair and it was also
reported by doje elon Mustoge and now was about one
one hundred and fifty point seven billion dollars comprehensively. Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Is that for the entire country or just for Texas?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
No, that's just for the entire country. The only thing
that we have is, if you remember last year, Governor
Abbit ordered Texis hospitals to ask all patients starting November first,
to disclose whether they were quote lawfully president in the
United States. Well, the Texas hospitals they just published that
data on April twenty fifth, and just for the November alone,

(01:23):
it was one hundred and twenty one point eight million
dollars in health care costs to the taxpayer.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, and you know, and I'm guessing too that if
I were legal illegally here in this country, if I
was undocumented and I wasn't supposed to be here, and
I was in a place like a hospital, and I
got asked that question, I might be sorely tempted to,
you know, to not either not answer the question or
they answer the question incorrectly unless somebody's asking for proof

(01:49):
of me being here legally.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, that's correct. Yeah, we really don't know the accuracy
of that data. We don't know whether they did or
did not, just like in Florida, or do they give
you three options whether you're legal, illegal, or you're not
going to be willing to respond, and so those are
your three options in for itself.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, okay, Well I'm guessing I get a lot of
not willing to respond. So it's it's unless unless we
require some sort of proof, there's no way to get
a really good handle on it. And I don't know,
maybe maybe in some ways we're afraid to find out
what the real figure is. You know, I have I
have my own thoughts on public education. As I mentioned,
you know in the intro for this, Aman Blair, that

(02:31):
you know, we don't really ask that question because the
school's figure it's their job to educate everybody, regardless of immigration, says,
so they don't bother to ask the question. But it's
got to be in the billions of dollars each and
every school year, yes, sir, whether.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's from education, healthcare, to law enforce and infrastructure like
you mentioned earlier. And that's why there's a few bills
that are up in our current legislative session this year,
however they're being stalled. Have like Senate Bill eight twenty
fives that mandates a study on the cost of legal
immigration inside the inside of Texas. And then you also

(03:09):
have a house built two five weeks seven that was
filed by Represented Bocott that actually codifies what Governor Abbott
mandated to Texas hospitals. But that was the point of
ordered on the House floor on the thirteenth of May.
And so both of those bills that are trying to
codify the just an understanding of the costs are being

(03:32):
stalled by which is weird a Republican House, Republican Senate,
and a Republican majority in Texas. Well.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Unfortunately, it's not weird here in Texas because we have
still too many Rhinos both in both bodies, and they
do what the Democrats want them to do, and right now,
then this is a natue of Democrats want slow walked.
At the very least, let's just play this out until
the session ends. And so far they're pretty effective at it,
aren't they?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Oh one hundred percent? SoRs like, if you don't have data,
then all you do is go based off of stories
that are emotionally based, and so you can actually make
policy decisions based off of emotions as opposed to data.
And that's why these bills are so important. That's why
the data is so important.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay, Well, hopefully we as taxpayers in the great state
of Texas, will put bar pressure on the state legislature.
Thanks for your time, sir, appreciate it, Senior fellow of
the Texas Public Policy Foundation, that's Amon Blair,