Thoughts on illegal immigration A while ago a writer stated the illegal immigrants help the U.S. Therefore we should help them. Well, here are the facts. It costs the taxpayers $80 billion dollars, that's 80 followed by nine zeros, more a year than they pay in taxes. Then to make it worse most of the money they make they send back home. Some cities in Mexico base their budget on the this influx of money. Then they receive housing subsidies, loans for college, free medical, food stamps and many other perks. Every morning a bus drops off the Mexican children at the border where another bus picks them up and drops them off at school. Nice! Who pays for their schooling? The children of citizens are having difficulty learning because of the slower pace in the classroom because the lessons are now taught in Spanish to help the newcomers. Ninety-five percent of murder warrants in Los Angeles are for illegal immigrants. Sixty-six percent of all births in Los Angeles are to illegal immigrants and paid for by taxpayers. Forty percent of the ten million illegal in Los Angeles County work for cash so they do not pay taxes. Illegal immigrants are introducing new strains of diseases into this country. Two percents of the illegal pick our crops and 29 percent are on welfare. Twenty-nine percent of inmates in federal prisons are illegal immigrants. Approximately 100,000 illegal immigrants are child molesters. In 1998 when Mexico played the U.S. soccer team in Los Angeles, the U.S. team was booed and had beer and trash thrown at them. In Los Angeles at one time sheet rockers were paid $22-$25/hour. This has been reduced by the illegal to about $7.50/hour. This means when taxes are withheld the revenues also have been reduced. To further answer that writer, we receive nothing from illegals and they go away with a bundle. When my father came to this country in 1914 he had to have a physical, a sponsor and $50 (which was a lot in those days) in cash. The sponsor was to guarantee that he would not go on welfare. How times have changed. Bills have been presented in Congress to take action on some of these problems; but the Democrats have constantly defeated them. Some of the content of this letter was taken from the "L.A. Times." Joe Costantini East Longmeadow