Illegal immigration is overloading already fragile systems in California—including that of healthcare, housing, and education—and is depressing wages, KRLA radio co-host Jim Righeimer of “The Weekend Answer” said on a recent episode of EpochTV’s California Insider.
Righeimer, who served on the Costa Mesa City Council in 2010 for eight years, including as the city’s mayor from 2012 to 2014, said no matter how charitable Californians think they are, unchecked immigration in the state is harming it.
“Americans are a giving people,” Righeimer said. But the problem with California, is “we’re handing out so much stuff for free.”
During the roughly 30-minute interview, Righeimer pointed to how much such immigration actually costs California taxpayers.
Of note, he said, is the cost of education, which, he said, is roughly about $15,000 a year for each child in public education.
“[Illegal immigrants] come across the border with two [or] three kids and that’s $45,000,” Righeimer said. “I guarantee you that the [immigrant] who came across the border isn’t paying $45,000 in taxes for that. We’re all paying for that.”
He said such is only a magnet.
“You want to give good benefits to your residents,” he said. “But once you say it’s for anybody who gets across the border, more people will come.”
Righemier additionally called Gov. Gavin Newsom’s December 2022 visit to the California-Mexico border in advance of a possible revoking of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allowed border agents to turn away asylum-seekers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a “full-on campaign stop.”
Shortly after that visit, Newsom told ABC News, that removing the policy could possibly “break” California.
The policy remains in place, for now. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to take up the issue in February, after some 19 states, mostly controlled by Republicans, challenged the Biden administration’s plan to do away with it.
Righeimer agreed that without it the border would be further flooded.
He said he had seen videos where there are thousands of people in Mexico camping and waiting for the policy to end so they can cross easier.
“[Newsom] just wants to get ahead of the curve,” he said, “saying he’s concerned about the money.”
California will become the first state in the nation by 2024 to offer free healthcare regardless of one’s immigration status, a provision in Newsom’s signed 2022–23 budget.
The governor has already decided to “pay people for their healthcare if they come across the border,” Righeimer said.
He also blamed the changing requirements for an immigrant to claim asylum.
Previously, a person seeking such needed to show their life was in danger due to political unrest in their home country.
But now, Righeimer said that has changed.
“What it is now is ‘hey, life’s not good in the country I’m from,’” he said.
He said those attempting these days to cross the border are not Mexicans, but are, instead, South and Central Americans, and from the Middle East and Africa.
“People are getting on planes to go to Mexico, buying airplane tickets to come into this country,” he said.
According to Righeimer, these migrants are willing to take the risk.
“When you come across from a poor country, you’ve got nothing to lose. You don’t really care,” he said.
He additionally said so much migration is worsening California’s current housing shortage.
He pointed to the recent mayoral race in Los Angeles, which in part, focused on creating more affordable housing in the city with the hope of getting the homeless off the street.
“And we’re having tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people walk across the border with no place to live,” he said. “And people are acting like that doesn’t affect housing.”
He said such inflates rents because so many are looking for a place to stay.
“There’s not enough money on the planet Earth to pay for people’s housing who just come across the border,” he said.
He said many who are seeking to live in the United States and California will do so for less pay and are “good, hard-working people [who] want something better for their kids and their family. It doesn’t make them evil.”
But he said, the country has a set of rules that should be followed. He likened the situation to a lifeboat that if overloaded, everyone suffers and the entire thing capsizes.
“You just can’t keep loading it up,” he said.
During the interview, Righeimer also responded to a pre-recorded video of a retired border patrol agent who said his colleagues’ hands are now tied from doing their jobs in keeping the border secure.
The retiree likened their jobs to “knights at the wall guarding the castle” and to vet those legally to “use the front door.”
“It works great,” the retired agent said, “until you get a new administration that comes in and opens the front door and everything that we did for all these years is no longer relevant.” The change has created depression and mental health issues for some working the border, he said.
Righeimer responded by saying the agents took an oath to protect the border, have put their life on the line, and now are being told by the administration to not do their job, but to instead just look away and “facilitate” the illegal influx, including filling out mounds of paperwork.
Meanwhile, he said, the drug cartels are taking advantage of the situation by smuggling more drugs through.
“For people that work in [this business],” he said, “it’s really rough on them right now.”
What’s been thrown out, Righeimer said, is order.
“There are a lot of good-hearted people who think the rest of the world is really bad and we’ve got to save these people,” he said. But, “you can’t keep on overloading people here and thinking … there’s no problem.”
The episode can be viewed on the California Insider’s YouTube channel. It was recorded before President Joe Biden announced Jan. 5 a tightening of the southern border for arrivals illegally from Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, expanding on rules implemented last October regarding migrants from Venezuela.
