GOP, Dems Exchange Attack Ads

By Brooks Jackson/CNN

WASHINGTON (June 27) -- At a rally complete with Slovenian dancers and music, Bob Dole says he likes immigrants.

"I was born here," he said. "Many of you were not. But I am just as proud of you." But you'd never know that from the TV ad Republicans are running.

"Did you know there are over 5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.?" a new Republican National Committee ad ominously states. "And that you spend $5.5 billion a year to support them with welfare, food stamps, and other services? Under President Clinton, spending on illegals has gone up."

For more than a week, that anti-Clinton ad has run heavily in California where illegal immigrants are a hot issue and in 17 other states.

Democrats are howling. A party lawyer wrote to TV stations saying the ad contains "a blatant and demonstrable falsehood," and asked them to stop running it. He didn't have much success. Democrats are now airing their own ad, contradicting Republicans. So who's right?

Let's look at that Republican ad more closely. The RNC "More" ad states, "You spend five and a half billion dollars a year to support them with welfare, food stamps, and other services."

This is misleading on several accounts.

That estimate is from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors less immigration. And they say it leaves out something important -- taxes paid by illegals.

"The kind of estimate that we did was a gross estimate," said Mark Krikorian of CIS. "In other words, the outlays not counting tax receipts." So the net cost would be much less.

According to Professor Charles Keely of Georgetown University, "Most estimates conclude that comparing the cost of social services provided by the government to illegal aliens and the amount of taxes paid by them, that there is relatively little cost, or little benefit, to government in general."

Furthermore, by the Republican's own figures, hardly any of that $5.5 billion figure was for welfare or food stamps as their ad implies -- $76 million for aid to illegal aliens' families with dependent children, with no estimate at all for food stamps. The fact is illegal aliens are not eligible for those benefits, and so get very little.

"I haven't heard anyone claim that food stamps made up an enormous portion of benefits to illegal immigrants," said Krikorian.

The big money is in public schools ($2.1 billion), emergency medical services (nearly $1 billion), and prisons -- if you call that a "service" to illegal aliens -- more than $800 million.

Dole himself does not favor cutting off emergency medical services for illegals. But, switching an earlier position, he does now favor giving states the right to deny public schooling to illegal immigrant children.

While in Woodland Hills, California, Dole stated, "The states provide a free education to people who by our own laws should not be in the United States." But that disagreement with President Clinton is not mentioned in the ad.

Says Keely, it "strikes me that this doesn't really inform the public about the differences between the candidates. The real difference is, should we educate undocumented children who are in the United States, or should we not?"

But rather than addressing the important issue of education for illegals, the Republican ad tries to score cheap points by playing on people's anger about welfare and food stamps. Altogether an ad calculated not to enlighten, but to mislead.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

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