Texas Faces Rising Cost for Illegal Immigrant Care

Businessweek: The cost of keeping illegal immigrants in prison and providing them with medical care exceeded $250 million last year in Texas, according to state health and corrections officials. The testimony before the House State Affairs Committee on Wednesday came as lawmakers faced a projected state budget shortfall of up to $18 billion. "We want to focus on what the real costs are for state services," said Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, the committee chairman. "There's really not a lot of wholly accurate data." Jerry McGinty, the Texas Department of Corrections' chief financial officer, said state prisons held 11,766 offenders who are foreign citizens in July. He said it costs the state about $171 million per year to hold them, although the federal government reimburses about 10 percent of that total.