To the Editor:
In the article referencing Assemblyman Hal Wirths considering it outrageous that taxpayers are paying for benefits for illiegal immigrants, I offer some additional facts and opinions.
Many of the taxpayers Assemblyman Wirths refers too are undocumented (what Assemblyman Wirths calls illegal) immigrants, paying payroll taxes and many pay property taxes by paying rent to their landlords.
The tax dollars of undocumented persons too help to pay the tuition costs the assemblyman references.
Some, probably many, undocumented persons receive taxpayer funded legal representation as does any person living in the US regardless of citizenship status, as a matter of law.
I also know that many undocumented persons receive free, and reduced fee, legal representation from nonprofit organizations, and others simply pay for that representation.
At the end of the article Assemblyman Wirths is quoted as saying with regards to these benefits coming from taxpayer dollars, that "there is no logic and no public benefit."
But there is both logic and public benefit.
The logic is that undocumented persons pay payroll taxes, and so, why shouldn't their taxes fund education for other undocumented persons.
Additionally, affording these persons college tuition raises the education level of the local communities benefiting those communities.
The community benefits from a more informed and educated local community and the taxpayers benefit because, with a better education, these students will be paying additional payroll taxes after college when they are employed.
Joseph Duffy,
West Milford