Health Care, Immigrants, and the Character of our Country

Health Care, Immigrants, and the Character of our Country
by Jim Wallis and Allison Johnson 09-29-2009
Sojourners

With an issue like health, deeply personal, but of great public concern, the faith community has a unique and important role to play — to define and raise the moral issues beneath the policy debate. One major moral issue that has surfaced is how we treat the immigrant in our society as we discuss and debate health-care reform.

Lawmakers have gone above and beyond to ensure that no undocumented immigrant would be covered under the proposed health-care plan, and the White House insists that people unlawfully present in the U.S. will be barred from using the proposed “exchange.”

When the now-infamous representative from South Carolina shouted “You lie!” at President Obama, political fact-checkers and the media struck back with force. They have been clear to say that President Obama wasn’t lying or misrepresenting the facts about undocumented immigrants in health-care reform.

These adamant denials from the fact-checkers and the White House, that the proposed bill will definitely not cover the undocumented, might help its political feasibility, but they don’t say much for its moral priorities.

In the faith community, we have a different ethic than political feasibility. For many years, our practice and policy has been that health care for all should mean health care for all. Yes, we believe that reform should also include immigrants, and that all within our shores at least have access to a basic safety net of services. We believe that would be a sign of strength in health-care reform, not weakness, if it included the immigrants among us. Jewish and Christian scriptures alike are more than clear about the moral mandate to take care of “the alien” and “the stranger” in your midst, to treat them as if they were your own. Why? Because at some time we all have been strangers or aliens in a new place. When politicians brag about the fact that immigrants are not included in health-care reform, it is a sign that political calculation has won out over moral consideration.

We are well aware that immigration is a tricky issue and an emotionally volatile topic, and best dealt with directly. Attempts to employ the volatile politics of the immigration issue to derail meaningful progress on health-care reform are unacceptable. But when outbursts from members of Congress incite a national media frenzy about what kinds of people should not benefit from meaningful health-care reform, we have a moral obligation to speak out.

Three dozen faith groups, including Sojourners, sent a letter to the White House and Congress last week. In the letter, we stated:

It is our strongly-held view that the provision of health care is a shared responsibility grounded in the sacred act of creation and our common humanity. Universal teachings within the scriptural texts of our diverse faith communities call us to welcome strangers and compassionately care for their basic human needs — including health care.

This means, first, that legal immigrants should be eligible for subsidies that assist them in purchasing health insurance. Second, we should eliminate the five-year bar on legal immigrants being eligible for Medicaid. Third, our concern for life and children must mean the inclusion of pregnant women and children in any health-care plan, regardless of their legal status.

The president has said that our response to health care in this nation is about the character of our country. We believe that is true. Our response to the issue of immigration is also about our character as a country. Do we want to be the sort of country who prides itself in its ability to prove that no immigrant, with or without documentation, is able to secure health coverage on a public exchange or receive financial assistance to obtain coverage when times are tough? After we accomplish that, will we move on to ensure that immigrant children are denied health care at clinics? Hospitals? Emergency rooms? By marginalizing immigrants in health-care reform legislation, we create a shadow health-care system to accompany the shadow society in which many immigrants are already forced to live and operate.

As Christians we are instructed to be generous, caring, and welcoming. Why would we support public policy designed to prohibit a needy person from accessing life-giving health care because of his or her immigrant status? And for us, health-care reform challenges our commitments as Christians. Let’s focus on good public policies, not fear-driven or divisive political games, which reflect our best moral values and the better nature of our country by including all immigrants in heath-care reform.

Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care

The Washington Times
September 18, 2009
Obama: Legalize illegals to get them health care
Stephen Dinan

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken," Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. "That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

Mr. Obama added, "If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all."

Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care.

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"It is ironic that the president told the American people that illegal immigrants should not be covered by the health care bill, but now just days later he's talking about letting them in the back door," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

"If the American people do not want to provide government health care for illegal immigrants, why would they support giving them citizenship, the highest honor America can bestow?" Mr. Smith said.

But immigrant rights groups see the speech as a signal that Mr. Obama is committed to providing health care coverage for anyone in the United States legally, regardless of their citizenship status.

"It's the first time I've certainly heard, publicly, him talking more about legal immigrants," said Eric Rodriguez, vice president for research and advocacy at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). "I think that was certainly positive progress. We were absolutely concerned about not hearing that."

On Wednesday, hours before Mr. Obama's speech, the NCLR had given the administration a public scolding, demanding that Mr. Obama needed to make "a public commitment ... to ensure that those who are here legally are covered."

A White House spokesman did not respond to questions about where the White House would make the cutoff for eligibility, and Mr. Rodriguez said he's still waiting for an answer from the administration.

"We don't know where they mean to draw the line," he said. "Our biggest concern is that most people don't realize legal immigrants are currently barred from receiving health care benefits for the first five years in the country."

Under the 1996 welfare overhaul, most federal aid programs are restricted to citizens and legal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years. Democrats have tried this year to chip away at that rule.

Immigration has dogged Mr. Obama in the health care debate. Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, shouted, "You lie," when the president, in an address to Congress last week, said his plans wouldn't cover illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers - who got an earful from constituents back home during August - have insisted on extra checks to make sure illegal immigrants do not have access to taxpayer-funded programs.

Senators have worked on language that would prevent illegal immigrants from buying insurance through a proposed insurance exchange envisioned in the health care reform package.

But the NCLR said that could lead to situations where some members of a family would be covered and others, including children of illegal immigrants, wouldn't be.

Mr. Obama said legalizing illegal immigrants is a way to take the sting out of the entire issue.

But Republicans said by pushing to legalize illegal immigrants, Mr. Obama is signaling that those here illegally eventually will get access to taxpayer-funded benefits.

Still, the push to pass a legalization bill is beginning to gain steam, even as advocates fret that the White House is moving too slowly.

On Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat and an outspoken advocate for legalization, agreed to take leadership in writing a new, more generous bill.

"We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it," Mr. Gutierrez said. "Saying immigration is a priority for this administration or this Congress is not the same as seeing tangible action, and the longer we wait, the more every single piece of legislation we debate will be obstructed by our failure to pass comprehensive reform."

You Think the Right Wing Is Mad Now? We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

The Huffington Post
Miguel Guadalupe
Sept. 16, 2009

You Think the Right Wing Is Mad Now? We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet


The congressional heckle heard around the world ... thousands converge on Washington DC for hate-fest 2009. Birthers, deathers, and conspiracy theorists feed rumor and misinformation via biased "news" channels.

Looking at the national health care debate, one may begin to think that the United States has lost its collective mind. As implausible as it may sound, this could be just the beginning. I fear that we have yet to see the worst of what the far right has in store for the rest of America.

What could possibly be more polarizing than the current health care debate? Immigration reform. Immigration will open the hornet's nest that is the conservative right and their rabid minions will swarm the sky like nothing we have ever seen before, save maybe during the Reformation and passing of the 14th and 15th amendments.

In some fashion they are already buzzing. Hate mongers like Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh blame immigrants for almost every ill plaguing America, feeding off fear and ignorance to fatten their ratings. Ask a protester at one of these circus town halls or tea bag parties, and you will hear the putrid regurgitation of lies as if they were holy psalms. To paraphrase one such child of God:

... Illegals ... send on the first bus one way back to wherever they came from ... send 'em home with a bullet in the head the second time.

The template is clear. Conservatives will claim that America is going into chaos and that this President is the harbinger of death to liberty and democracy. While wrapping themselves in the flag representing freedom for all, they fight to deny freedoms and dehumanize men, women and children whose only crime is not waiting in line while their families starve before trying and find work and a better life in America.

The right will focus on so-called "amnesty." They will say the President is caving to criminals, that he is giving the country away. They will make people fear that "illegals" are at every turn, a danger to society. They will say they are doing this to "take their country back." The question is again -- take it back from whom?

The "moderate" voices will mask the same arguments under "fighting terrorism." They will bring up 9/11, forgetting that many immigrants, some undocumented, died horribly in that tragedy, and many have died or are dying of health complications from participating in the subsequent clean up efforts.

Perhaps most disturbing, the rhetoric that will come from the right will begin a bonfire of violence against those perceived to be immigrants. Already, we are seeing an increase in anti-immigrant violence across the country. They will foster an atmosphere so thick with suspicion and prejudice that neighbors will have trouble looking each other in the eye.

How can the rest of America protect itself from this new wave of vitriol coming our way? Preparing ourselves will be crucial, for a nation unprepared for this tsunami will be too late to protect innocents who fall victim to its wrath.

We must strengthen the enforcement of hate crime laws, and make it clear that violence to others based on the victim's supposed group will not be tolerated.

We must make sure that rumors and misinformation are confronted head on and early by the media, community groups and politicians.

The media must stop giving fringe elements "equal time" for debate in order to appear balanced.

We must strengthen the resolve of our representatives who we elected on a change and reform platform, and let them know they have the support of a majority of Americans, and that we will hold them accountable should they cower under the heavy hammer of the regressionist movement.

Above all, we must all prepare to support reform. Support by talking to friends, relatives, colleagues about why it is crucial to keep families united, to allow for a transition from undocumented to documented status, and allow families to come out of the shadows.

We changed the policy makers through the ballot box, but changing minds happens across the dinner table and at local public forums. Supporters must defend their rights to be heard with poise and dignity and not tolerate the chaos we've seen in previous town hall gatherings. .

The good news is the right wing has played their hand early in the "change game." By pulling out most of the stops against health care, we now have an idea of how they will attack immigration reform. The real grass roots movement must rise again and not only defend reform, but protect the people most affected. It will be hard, it will difficult, but change is always difficult, and those who would "conserve" the status quo are not going to give it up without waging the fight of their lives. Neither will we.

Comprehensive reform needed on immigration

SalisburyPost.com
Comprehensive reform needed on immigration
Monday, September 14, 2009 3:00 AM

By Rev. J. George Reed and Chris Liu-Beers

N.C. Editorial Forum

Across North Carolina, nearly everyone agrees that the current immigration system is broken. So if the system is broken, why do we continue pouring money into it? Instead, we should take this historic opportunity to fix it.

Many politicians are saying that they want to address the root causes of our immigration situation, but they go on to talk only about increased enforcement. Of course, we are a nation of laws and the rule of law should be upheld. But experience and common sense show us that merely building a bigger wall won't work because enforcement alone does not deal with the root causes. If we're going to address the causes of immigration, we need to have a serious conversation about factors like American trade policy (including NAFTA) and the lack of opportunity in many "sending" countries. When NAFTA went into effect in the mid-1990s, its unfair trade provisions allowed U.S.-subsidized corn to flood the Mexican market, bankrupting nearly 2 million Mexican corn farmers virtually overnight. This major economic disaster had a big impact on immigration into the U.S. from Mexico.

The bottom line is that Congress and the president basically have three options for addressing immigration — and only one of them will work.

- Allow the current immigration mess to deteriorate further, a prospect that frustrates the vast majority the American people.

- Hold out for the ugly fantasy that we are going to get rid of 12 million undocumented immigrants, a prospect as unrealistic as it is un-American.

- Move forward with a comprehensive plan that restores the rule of law, gets people in the system, makes employers play by the rules, and creates a stable, sustainable and legal system of immigration.

Since we're not going to deport 12 million people, we need comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship in order to assimilate new Americans. We already know that building a bigger wall won't help. We've tried that for the last few years with nothing to show for it. What we need is an orderly system that works for both immigrants and our country.

Comprehensive reform is the only practical and sensible way to ensure that all workers are here legally, unscrupulous employers cannot undercut their honest competitors, fairness is restored to the labor market, and enforceability and justice are restored to the rule of law. It will lift wages for workers, restore tax fairness and create a level playing field for law-abiding employers.

Despite the clamoring of a noisy minority, polling data consistently shows that American voters support comprehensive reform over an enforcement-only approach. A recent national poll found that when voters are given the details of comprehensive reform, 86 percent support Congress passing comprehensive reform, while only 7 percent strongly oppose the plan.

So what should comprehensive immigration reform look like? The solution to our current broken system must include:

- The reunification of families and preservation of our family immigration system.

- A way for people to get in the system with legal status so they get on a path to citizenship, learn English, and become part of society.

- A coherent and fair legal system that respects the value of due process.

- A logical, viable system for regulating legal immigration; and

- Effective, humane border and interior enforcement that respects everyone's rights and keeps communities safe without forcing people into society's shadows.

We know Americans do not want our families getting torn apart. We do not want our workers getting abused. We do not want a trap door in the minimum wage. The American people want a practical, commonsense solution. Difficult problems demand strong leadership, and the people of North Carolina are looking to Washington to put our immigration system back on the right track.

As members of the faith community, we believe that we have the opportunity to fix our nation's broken immigration system and uphold our deepest values at the same time. The command to welcome the "stranger" echoes in our ears as immigrant families and workers are living in a state of fear due to increased raids, deportations and anti-immigrant sentiment. Our religious traditions call us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we believe this applies to immigrants as much as anyone else

Can a Mother Lose Her Child Because She Doesn't Speak English?

TIME
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009
Can a Mother Lose Her Child Because She Doesn't Speak English?
By Tim Padgett with Dolly Mascareñas / Oaxaca

Can the U.S. government take a woman's baby from her because she doesn't speak English? That's the latest question to arise in the hothouse debate over illegal immigration, as an undocumented woman from impoverished rural Mexico — who speaks only an obscure indigenous language — fights in a Mississippi court to regain custody of her infant daughter.

Cirila Baltazar Cruz comes from the mountainous southern state of Oaxaca, a region of Mexico that makes Appalachia look affluent. To escape the destitution in her village of 1,500 mostly Chatino Indians, Baltazar Cruz, 34, migrated earlier this decade to the U.S., hoping to send money back to two children she'd left in her mother's care. She found work at a Chinese restaurant on Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

But Baltazar Cruz speaks only Chatino, barely any Spanish and no English. Last November, she went to Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, Miss., where she lives, to give birth to a baby girl, Rubí. According to documents obtained by the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, the hospital called the state Department of Human Services (DHS), which ruled that Baltazar Cruz was an unfit mother in part because her lack of English "placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future." (Read "Should a Muslim Mother Be Caned for Drinking a Beer?")

Rubí was taken from Baltazar Cruz, who now faces deportation. In May, a Jackson County judge gave the infant to a couple (it is unclear if for foster care or adoptive purposes) who reportedly live in Ocean Springs. Baltazar Cruz is challenging the ruling in Jackson County Youth Court and hopes that if she is deported she can at least take Rubí back to Mexico with her. (She has not disclosed the father's identity.) (See the best and worst moms ever.)

Baltazar Cruz's case has been taken up by the Mississippi Immigrants' Rights Alliance (MIRA) and the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), whose lawyers say they can't comment on its specifics because of a judge's gag order. But Mary Bauer, the SPLC's legal director, says that on a general level, any notion that a mother can lose custody of a child because she doesn't speak a particular language "is a fundamentally outrageous violation of human rights." (Read "When Motherhood Gets You Jail Time.")

Before the gag order, advocates for Baltazar Cruz had charged that the problems sprang from faulty translation at Singing River. Baltazar Cruz arrived at the hospital after she flagged down a Pascagoula police officer on a city street. She was later joined there by a Chatino-speaking relative, according to MIRA, but the hospital declined his services and instead used a translator from state social services, an American of Puerto Rican descent who spoke no Chatino and whose Spanish was significantly different from that spoken in Mexico.

According to the Clarion-Ledger, the state report portrayed Baltazar Cruz as virtually a prostitute, claiming she was "exchanging living arrangements for sex" in Pascagoula and planned to put the child up for adoption. Through her advocates (before the gag order), Baltazar Cruz adamantly denied those claims. Since "she has failed to learn the English language," the newspaper quotes the documents as saying, she was "unable to call for assistance for transportation to the hospital" to give birth. The social-services translator also reported that Baltazar Cruz had put Rubí in danger because she "had not brought a cradle, clothes or baby formula." But indigenous Oaxacan mothers traditionally breast feed their babies for a year and rarely use bassinets, carrying their infants instead in a rebozo, a type of sling.

MIRA has accused Singing River and Mississippi DHS of essentially "stealing" Rubí. Citing the gag order, DHS will not comment on Baltazar Cruz's case, but before the order, an official insisted to the Clarion-Ledger that "the language a person speaks has nothing to do with the outcome of the investigation." Singing River spokesman Richard Lucas calls the MIRA charge "preposterous" and, while noting that the nonprofit hospital delivered Baltazar Cruz's baby free of charge, insists it "did what any good hospital would have done given her unusual circumstances" by alerting DHS.

Still, despite DHS statements to the contrary, language seems a central issue in the state's case against Baltazar Cruz. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in the U.S. In 2004 a Tennessee judge ordered into foster care the child of a Mexican migrant mother who spoke only an indigenous tongue. (Another judge later returned the child to her family.) Last year, a California court took custody of the U.S.-born twin babies of another indigenous, undocumented migrant from Oaxaca. After she was deported, the Oaxaca state government's Institute for Attention to Migrants fought successfully to have the twins repatriated to her in Mexico this summer. In such cases, says the SPLC's Bauer, a lack of interpreters is a key factor. When a mother can't follow the proceedings, "she looks unresponsive, and that conveys to a judge a lack of interest in the child, which is clearly not the case," she says. She also argues it's hard enough for any adult to learn a new language, "let alone when you're a migrant working long hours for low pay."

One of DHS's apparent fears is that an infant isn't safe in a home where the mother can articulate a 911 call solely in a language spoken only by some 50,000 Oaxacan Indians. Bauer points out that children have been raised safely in the U.S. by non-English-speaking parents for well over a century. Had they not, thousands of Italians and Russians would have had to leave their kids with foster care on Ellis Island. "Raising your child is one of the most fundamental liberties, and it can only be taken from you for the most serious concerns of endangerment," says Bauer. "Not speaking English hardly meets that standard."

Rosalba Piña, a Chicago attorney who co-hosts a local radio program on immigration law, agrees. She likens Mississippi officials to those who fought to keep 6-year-old Elián Gonzalez in the U.S. nine years ago because they argued his life would be better here than in impoverished Cuba with his father. "They're ignoring basic U.S. and international law," says Piña. "Unless there's some real threat to the child's life back in the home country, most judges know it's in the child's best interest to be with his parents." In the end, she notes, Rubí is a U.S. citizen who could return to this country at any time as an adult.

The next court hearing in Baltazar Cruz's case is slated for November. In the meantime, Mexican consular officials in the U.S. struck an agreement with Mississippi authorities this month to ensure that Mexico will be informed when nationals like Baltazar Cruz become embroiled in cases like this. Says Daniel Hernandez Joseph, director of Mexico's program for protection of citizens abroad: "The main concern of the Mexican government is not to separate immigrant families." Baltazar Cruz now has to persuade Mississippi judges that it should be their concern too.

Health fight arouses immigration battle

Politico
Health fight arouses immigration battle
By: Gebe Martinez
September 10, 2009 04:50 AM EST

Regardless of how the stormy health care debate ends, the lingering question will be whether the rest of President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda was swept away in the political debris.

One priority that has become entangled in the messy health care discussion is immigration, a reliable lightning rod for conservatives who habitually try to confuse any issue by playing to xenophobes’ fears.

In recent town hall meetings and media interviews, conservative Republicans falsely claimed illegal immigrants would get free health insurance under the president’s plan. Though blatantly untrue, the statement has taken on a life of its own and compounded headaches for some Democrats who are wavering on Obama’s health care proposal.

But the renewed immigrant-bashing has served to strengthen the determination of immigration reform advocates to advance their own initiative after the health care issue is resolved and to not let their bill’s destiny be determined by the twisted politics of health care.

Both issues present the most vexing dilemmas for politicians, but there is a key strategic difference between the two: The battle over health insurance has become fiercely partisan, while the immigration debate has previously allied Republicans and Democrats, business and labor, and other unusual partners.

Republicans also have come to realize they may be better off dealing with immigration and getting it off the table than being blamed for the angry anti-immigrant rhetoric that turned Latino voters off from the GOP ticket in 2008.

Democratic leaders predict Republicans will co-sponsor the immigration bill, something that has eluded Obama on health care and other major legislation he advanced this year.

“There’s strong interest from the Republican side in coming up with a balanced, down-the-middle approach on immigration,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.

Schumer had promised to have an immigration bill drafted by the time Congress returned to work this week, but he has delayed unveiling any proposal in order to draw input and support from both sides of the aisle. The Obama administration also has been meeting with key Senate and House members from both parties to find consensus on a plan.

To say that immigration is at least as tough a political issue as health care is an understatement. Twice in the past four years, the Senate tried and failed to approve a comprehensive package of reforms, and the House was too timid to take it up.

But the seasoned veterans of those legislative battles are more confident that they can overcome attacks against legal and illegal immigrants and get a bill done by spring.


“Immigration, unlike health care, has been discussed over and over. The angry voices that we are hearing on health care, we have been hearing on immigration for years and years. We have been able to absorb that hate and the anger,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

“We have gone through this. We have heard the harsh voices, and we have discussed the different solutions. We are not going to go through this airing of anger, so much, on immigration that we will not be familiar with,” Becerra added. “We know what we are going to face.”

Still, the long fight over health insurance already has affected immigration.

With many items on the agenda after health care and ahead of immigration — Afghanistan troop funding, climate change legislation, overhauling financial services — there is concern that the president will not have sufficient political capital to push immigration to completion.

The immigration movement also suffered psychological setbacks this summer. Its longtime champion, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), died 15 months after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

And despite Democrats’ expectations that Republicans will co-sponsor an immigration bill, key allies from earlier fights will not be there the next time around.

Kennedy’s Republican ally on the 2006 immigration bill, Arizona Sen. John McCain, voiced his disapproval of the new immigration plan being pushed by Democrats and is not expected to play a leading role. Taking his place will most likely be Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who worked side by side with McCain in the 2006 and 2007 immigration negotiations.

Another key Republican negotiator in those battles, Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, retires from the Senate on Thursday, with regrets that immigration reform was not accomplished during his brief time in office.

Taking Martinez’s seat until the start of the next term, in January 2011, will be George LeMieux, a longtime adviser to Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — who is running for the seat himself. LeMieux’s immigration position remains a question mark.

Still, immigration advocates say they are ready to “tee up” their plan.

“We saw where people landed on this issue before. We have a better sense of the landscape on immigration and on how to get it done,” Becerra said. “Running at a soft speed on this gives you a chance to ramp it up.”

Assuming health care does not suck up all of the political oxygen.

Gebe Martinez is a longtime journalist and a frequent lecturer and commentator on the policy and politics of Capitol Hill.

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