Guest view: Cutting immigrant funds will hurt state's finances

In March of 2013, an Arab immigrant woman - to protect her identity, I'll call her F - came to the Arab American Family Services (AAFS), a local organization that helps immigrants.

She was seeking legal permanent residency for herself and her two children, but, speaking no English, and in an abusive relationship with an American who had threatened to take away her children if she pursued the road to security and independence, she needed help, so she turned to AAFS.

A multifaceted entity, which by necessity all immigrant-serving organizations are, AAFS sprang into action, physically moving F and her family to a safe location, alerting her to and procuring for her the new federal protections offered to battered spouses by the Violence Against Women Act, and providing her access to an immigrant visa.

Once F and her family were safe and secure, AAFS was there to help her build a future. Taking classes offered at AAFS, F learned and mastered English. Through AAFS's counseling services, she found a job and gained permanent residency as well as full-time work.

These are positive changes we would wish for all our fellow Illinoisans in such circumstances. For immigrants, the stakes are particularly high: legal status adds on average about $2,000 in annual earnings, and citizenship means an additional nearly $7,000 each year. (And these are in addition to the positive effects immigrants have on the wider economy, where their contributions are associated with hundreds of billions of dollars in added wages across the country.)

F's story, then, is the American dream made real: through dedicated effort, facing at times dire circumstances, F, with a little help as we all sometimes need, achieved safety and financial security, and she now supports her family.

Still, F wanted to give back, to help those who, like she did just a few years ago, face the feelings of fear and despair that haunt domestic violence survivors. She completed AAFS's domestic violence and legal advocacy trainings, allowing her to pay forward the assistance she received in her time of greatest need. This, too, is the American dream made real: having succeeded for herself and her family, F is now assisting other women who need help out of terrible situations and who dream of a day when they themselves can feel safe and secure.

This is what Illinois's immigrant-serving organizations are doing. Working with people to better their lives, to escape harm and fear, to move to financial independence, and to realize the full potential of their abilities and contributions to our communities. But in order to do so, many rely on funding from the state-funding that Gov. Bruce Rauner has proposed to slash to zero, even though the funds represent an investment that stands to produce fivefold returns for the state.

It's important to understand that the funding for an immigrant-serving organization is not some feel-good giveaway.

It's an investment in F and others like her that could return $5 in added tax revenues for every one spent by the state. At a time when the Governor and legislative leaders in Springfield are trying to dig us out of a serious fiscal and budgetary hole, cutting the funding for immigrant services is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Sure, the deficit will look a little better this year (And truly only a little-we're talking about .01% of the State's budget.) But with no one standing by to help immigrants transition to legal status, citizenship, or simply from a bad situation to a better one, we'll stand to lose out on tens of millions of added revenues over the coming years.

In his budget address, the governor spoke of "investing in the future," but that is not what he proposed to do in his budget proposal. Instead, his budget makes cuts today that will force deeper cuts tomorrow. We hope our legislators understand the need to invest now in all Illinoisans.

• Lawrence Benito is the Chief Executive Officer of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights