The Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services reported that over $54 million in welfare benefits were issued to undocumented immigrant parents in March, according to figures released by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich’s office.

This follows the recent University of Southern California study indicating that 1-in10 Los Angeles County residents is an undocumented immigrant.

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The $54 million includes over $19 million in CalWORKs (welfare) payments and nearly $35 million in food stamps, representing 20% of all CalWORKs and food stamp issuances in the county.

At that rate, the projected annual cost for 2013 is approximately $650 million, an increase of $25 million compared with last year.

These numbers will continue to rise as, according to the USC study, one in five children in Los Angeles County has at least one parent who is in the country illegally.

“With the $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for healthcare, the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion dollars a year,” said Antonovich.  “These costs do not even include the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually for education.”

Nearly half of the county’s illegal immigrants lack a high school diploma, and 60 percent do not speak English well, according to the USC study.

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