Liberal and pro-government services groups are already setting the scene for 2010 with a recent report by University of California at Davis professor Philip Martin. In the report Martin finds that the declining birth rate in Mexico will provide less workers of legal age and a lowering of illegal aliens crossing the border. The report also predicts an economic boom in Mexico.

How is this setting the scene for those wanting a hand out you may ask? In a recent article on the report in the Fresno Bee, several groups come out of the woodwork to get their hand ready to enter the cookie jar. First is education.

Fewer immigrants also could translate into less money for Fresno Unified School District and other schools.

Jefferson Elementary School gets about $430 per English-language learner from the state, said principal Froy Ramírez, former director of the district's Multilingual Multicultural Education Office.

About 62% of the students at Jefferson Elementary are Spanish speakers. A portion of the state money is used for hiring bilingual instructional assistants, he said.

Fresno Unified lost about 800 students last year, and if it loses migrant children in the future, there will be more of a financial impact, he said.

"If in fact the population of immigrant students is declining, there will be less and less money to work with," Ramírez said.

Well Mr. Ramirez, that is because you won't need as many teachers. Learn to live within your budget and reduce expenses as requirements are lowered. Why are we providing these services anyway? These are services families should have to provide to their children privately.

The second group lining up to the trough is the agriculture sector.

Some agricultural groups say fewer immigrants will result in more dependence upon machines.

"I don't agree with those demographics. What will reduce it will be mechanization," said Manuel Cunha, president of Nisei Farmers League.

Other agricultural groups wonder whether the Mexican birthrate decline will simply attract a different group of immigrants.

"We care about a stable labor force. We will have no choice to turn to other countries," said Celine Nieto, a spokeswoman for Western Growers Association, a statewide group made up mostly of vegetable growers.

A large number of farmworkers in California come from Mexico, Chavez said.

Agricultural employers might draw more from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala if Mexico is no longer viable, he said.

Better get to mechanizing now then. If you had mechanized in the first place we wouldn't have as many employers who hire illegal aliens. The whole agriculture industry is a huge violator of immigration laws and now they're complaining there's a potential they may have to run their businesses legally.

There are some good things that would come if the prediction rings true. There'd be less illegal aliens running hospitals into closure.

A decline in immigrants will have less impact on the health industry, except for the use of hospital emergency rooms, which can be costly.

The expensive treatment of uninsured patients forced two emergency rooms to close in Los Angeles County in August. That month, a federal bankruptcy judge ordered the Elastar Community Hospital and its emergency room in East Los Angeles to close after it rung up more than $10 million in debt.

I covered a few hospital closures here and here.

The next showing is the costs in government services of which 68% of those on government assistance are Hispanic! An outrageous number that they are hoping will decline with a drop in border crossers.

As of June 30, 2004, more than 256,000 people in Fresno County were receiving food stamps, Medi-Cal, CalWORKs and other assistance.

Of those, the majority were female, Hispanic and English-speaking and lived in an urban area. Hispanics made up 68% of public assistance recipients, according to the Fresno County Department of Employment and Temporary Assistance.

The population of Fresno county as a whole, as of 2003, is 879,800+ (source). That's about 30% of the county on government assistance. The high number of illegal aliens who were not counted, but are receiving benefits fraudulently, probably skews the percentage.

There is another argument to this report and it is that even a decline in birthrate over the past 30 years has not slowed the immigration to our country. Not only from Mexico, but from other countries as well.

In a counterargument to Martin's report, Steven Camarota, director of research for The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said a lower birthrate might have little impact on immigration because of the complex nature of Mexican migration.

"Mexico has experienced significant drops in fertility rates in 30 years. It so far has not so much had an impact on migration. It's one of many factors," Camarota said.

Higher wages in the United States and the network of Mexican-American families could continue to bring Mexicans to the United States, he said. He cited Russia, which has a much lower birthrate than Mexico, yet many Russians leave because of economic problems.

What this shows is that even a low birth rate will probably not lower the illegal migration. The point of all of this being that these groups are just lining up their arguments for more funding, less crack downs on illegal immigration and an increase in legal immigration so they can pay people even less. With the ability to point to a study that shows it will decline on it's own, they have an argument against anything that comes up reducing both legal and illegal immigration.

As seen above ,the report can also be twisted to make arguments for more funding for schools, even though the same report would show a decline in students.

If I could say one good thing about all of these groups, it is that they sure plan ahead to line their pockets with taxpayer money.