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I have no knowledge of their methodology or the way they conducted the survey, so I'm going to simply brush those questions away by assuming the figures in the article are roughly correct.

That being said, there is a significant problem with this survey: We are not comparing like with like. "Natives" covers everyone from the ghetto poor to A Jerrold Perenchio of Univision. The latter, of course, has gotten from being merely very rich to extremely rich by running Univision which provides Spanish language TV to Mexicans and others. He is one of that tenth of a percent or so who pays 38% of California income taxes; he wouldn't have that money or pay those taxes without illegals. His company has a lot of employees, and they wouldn't have their jobs without illegals.

A more relevent question in my mind would be "How do non-native poor compare to native poor?" That is, check out a ghetto resident with a high-school education, and compare him to a Mexican with a high-school education. Who's doing better? The survey doesn't say because it didn't ask.

Another big problem is that they do not try to measure gains by employers and customers. For example, let's say I go to a car repair shop that uses cheap illegal labor. I will get my car fixed, most likely for much less than a fully legal shop would have to charge. That money stays in my pocket and I can use it to buy more stuff.

Or let's say we have a greedy body shop owner. I come in and ask him to get that ding on my 1991 Mercedes fixed. He charges $60 an hour whether I get a native or illegal worker, and he pays the native $15 and illegal $5 an hour. Sounds bad, right? But he will wind up paying taxes on his profit, and those go straight into the Treasury and the State income tax gets a nice slice out of it.

So just because the illegal doesn't get paid well and doesn't pay taxes doesn't mean people don't pay taxes on those extra profits illegals help make.

I have a really tough time with the advocates of closing the borders and eliminating illegals, simply because I see them as people. Sometimes they do good things and other times bad; we should arrest the bad ones and help out the good. I don't think someone is "bad" just because he's on the other side of a border, nor do I think someone is "good" because he's on my side.

There are good people over there, and bad people, and I break the law ever day by driving at 80 on the freeway, just as a lot of other people do.

D

PS I know this topic generates millions of flames. I am happy to hear civilized disagreement, but if you simply want to say I'm an idiot for not agreeing with you, leave it to yourself. The more replies like that I receive, the more I feel illegals are getting a bum rap in this country.

You may drive 80 miles per hour ever day on the freeway and break the law. I don't. You may want to believe that illegals contribute to our economy. I don't. You don't seem to have much, if any, respect for the rule of law or for our society. I have absolutely no sympathy for illegal aliens. They have no right to be here. They are invading our country, hurting our economy, disrespecting OUR culture (while they expect us to bend over backwards to try to understand THEIR culture), destroying our health care system, sometimes murdering American citizens, driving us from our homes (now WE have to emigrate to someplace else in the United States just to have a decent quality of life)...and all of this without having an ounce of respect for our country, our values and our laws. I woke up one day and there I was living right almost in the middle of "Tijuana"...seemed like it anyway. I was able to move fortunately. Many, many other people can't. If you don't see this as an unlawful and overwhelming INVASION of our country, then you must be blind.

Because their poverty rates are so high, Mexican immigrants have substantially increased the overall size of the poor population in the United States. While Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children under age 18 account for 4.2 percent of the nation’s total population, they account for 3.3 million or 10.2 percent of the nation’s total poor population.

It would be kind of fun to pick the survey apart. Here it says that they account for 10.2 percent of the total poor population. Makes me wonder why we aren't worrying about the other 90%. Maybe we should be looking within our borders instead of outside of our borders.

I know many of the Mexicans that come up have about a 4th grade education - school is often not available down there and I believe it isn't free. Most kids have to work to support their families in Mexico and a lot of them work once they get up here. I'm sure a substandard education is a big component of the high poverty rate.

I just ordered that Mexifornia book - been wanting to get it for a while. I don't begrudge people coming up at all. I sure wouldn't sit on my butt and watch my family starve.

I know a lot of illegals and their life is exceptionally hard. I ask them why they don't go back home - they say it is much worse back in Mexico.

As a taxpayer I sure as heck resent paying for their medical services and educational services, but I resent paying for all the other people as well. My kids are in private school because the public school system is so bad. I pay cash for my medical services because my HMO is so lousy. The big problem is that we are turning into a Socialistic country.

I don't know who conducted the survey. The home page didn't have much information. Hard to tell if there was an agenda going. If it is true, then some real work need to be done at the legislative level. They are the bad guys - not the illegals.