Today you go out and give a pep talk to a cheering demonstration of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Tomorrow you do this.

“With Suffolk County spending more than $24.5 million each year on costs related to illegal immigrants, US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has proposed an amendment to the federal Immigration Bill that would offer grants to localities for their efforts in dealing with the issue. ‘Municipalities like Suffolk County have reached their breaking point when it comes to covering the rising costs associated with undocumented immigrants,’ Schumer said last week. ‘Suffolk cannot shoulder this burden without the help of the federal government. My amendment is a positive first step in providing some critical relief to localities for essential services they provide in health care, housing and law enforcement.’”

[Derb] Er, excuse me, Senator? Since Suffolk County (where I live) has “reached” its “breaking point when it comes to covering the rising costs associated with undocumented immigrants,” might it not be time to enforce the people’s laws against the entry of and employment of illegal immigrants?

[The article continues] “According to Suffolk statistics, there are an estimated 40,000 undocumented immigrants in this county… Suffolk officials have also noted that 10% of the county jail population consists of illegal immigrants, costing Suffolk $10.4 million, and an additional $2.6 million in expenses for the district attorney’s office. Included in the $24.5 million price tag are health care services for illegal immigrants, with 43% of the visits to Suffolk County clinics documented as ‘no pays.’ The county estimates 50% of those encompassed in that number are undocumented.”

[Derb] Interesting numbers there. Suffolk County’s population was 1,475,488 at the last census. So one in 37 of us is an illegal immigrant. The county jail population is around 1,600. If ten percent of them are illegals, that’s 160, or 0.4 percent of the 40,000. The non-illegal-immigrant jail population would be 1,440; about 0.1 percent of the 1,435,488 non-illegal-immigrants in the county. So illegal immigrants are being jailed at a rate four times that of the rest of us.

Suffolk County is about 1,800 miles from the USA’s southern border.