Welcome to the e-Voices MONDAY MINUTE, your weekly email newsletter from New Mexico Voices for Children. Please take a minute to add your voice to the pressing issues of the day. Also, tell us what issues you'd like to know more about so we can tailor the MONDAY MINUTE to your interests. Thanks!

May 29, 2006


Myth Busting

The myths surrounding undocumented immigrants abound and have boiled over again within public discourse thanks to the recent activities in Congress. In an effort to dispel some of these myths, New Mexico VOICES for Children released a report last week titled “Undocumented Immigrants in New Mexico: State Tax Contributions and Fiscal Concerns.” The report looks at the taxes undocumented immigrants pay to the state of New Mexico, such as gross receipts and property tax, that are impossible to avoid. It contrasts this with the estimated cost of educating undocumented children. Among the findings:

• It is estimated that between 40,000 and 55,000 undocumented immigrants reside in New Mexico – or about 2 percent of the state’s total population.
• Depending on the population estimates used, undocumented immigrants pay the state of New Mexico between $50 million and $69 million in taxes each year.
• Undocumented immigrants pay between $1.2 million and $1.8 million more in taxes than it costs to educate undocumented children.
• Check out the whole report on our website: http://www.nmvoices.org/attachments/immigrant_tax_report.pdf

Revisiting Race Matters

As you may have read (or heard on the radio), our Race Matters conference was quite successful. Some 300 attendees learned about institutionalized racism within our juvenile justice and child welfare systems and reproductive and mental health service sectors. But there’s little time to pat ourselves on the back. One of the primary reasons we co-sponsored the conference (along with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Albuquerque Human Rights Office, and the NM Human Rights Coalition) was to come up with recommendations for changing public policy that we can present to the Legislature.

Next week, we’ll be meeting again to discuss and further develop the recommendations that came out of the conference. The meeting is free and all are welcome, but we can only accommodate 100 people, so RSVP soon!

Race Matters follow-up meeting:

• Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 2:30pm in Albuquerque (location on RSVP form)
  CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

For further reading on the race issue, check out the new book from United for a Fair Economy – The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide. Looking beneath the earning gap, this book examines the root of America’s racial/economic disparity by exposing how people of color have been barred from government wealth-building programs such as the GI bill.

For more on the book or to order a copy, go to http://www.racialwealthdivide.org/

Prime-Time Tuesday

Of course, whether you attend the Race Matters meeting or not, you’ll want to go to the polls on June 6th to vote in the primary. Polls are open from 7am to 7pm.