Simple. If they're here legally, where are their sponsors - the people who got these aliens here by signing a pledge to keep them from becoming "public charges?"
Simple. We don't want to be the welfare office for every poor Third World nation dumping its poorest on us. Look at all the Russian retirees who came after Russia's pension system collapsed.
IMMIGRATION resource library: public-health facts, court decisions, local INS numbers!
1) They aren't citizens.
2) If they want to be here, taxpayers should be under no obligation to support them.
3) I have enough problems with giving citizens food stamps and welfare from the government. Poverty is generally a choice. Even when it is not, feeding the institutionalized poor-by-choice or temporary poor by-circumstances would best be handled by private organizations such as churches, funded by voluntary private donations, not the government.
Sure sounds simple - doesn't it. Instead we are giving every conceivable benefit to illegals - welfare, health care, free elementary education, discount university level education, you name it. GW is a fool if he thinks that this will win more than a small handful of votes. Dems will ALWAYS win the Socialist handout contest - every time, without question. I sincerely believe that GW is pandering to the people who WILL vote him out of office in 3 years. I have lost a tremendous amount of respect for GW on the whole illegals/Mexico pandering act that he has been running for the past year. I would back a conservative candidate over GW in a second - but there really aren't any around anymore or any that could get elected.
I didn't have time to read all the posts, so excuse me if I'm repeating someone else:
The problem is that every legal immigrant has a sponsor that signed a paper promising to support the new immigrant if he/she is in financial trouble. The sponsors should be financially responsible for the immigrants they vouched for!!!