Living in the Shadows: The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
When I arrived at work last Friday, I could immediately tell that something was amiss. The blaring music and jovial voices that usually filled the kitchen at my restaurant were strangely muted that afternoon, the movements of my co-workers slowed as they battled the thick, warm air above the gas range.
“What’s wrong?” I asked one of the bussers.
“It’s X. His son needs an operation to remove a tumor. The doctors say it might be cancer.”
Coping with the illness of a child is debilitating for any family. But the blow strikes X harder than most: as an undocumented immigrant, he knows that dealing with a health crisis in the United States is a nearly impossible task. Even though X works two jobs, at $9.72 an hour, quality private insurance is quite simply out of reach.
Of the 46.3 million uninsured people in America today, close 7 million are undocumented immigrants. While it is estimated that over 30 million uninsured citizens will be added to the rolls thanks to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the legislation explicitly prohibits undocumented immigrants, already barred from Medicare and Medicaid, from receiving federal benefits. A majority of those who will remain uninsured after the law takes full effect in 2014 will thus be undocumented immigrants and their families.
During the heated health care debates that took place over the past two years, Republicans did their best to make the potential coverage of undocumented immigrants a rally-cry for opponents of reform, despite the fact that the bill clearly excluded this demographic. Who can forget the moment Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) acerbically shouted “You lie!” at the President when he affirmed that health benefits would not be extended to undocumented immigrants in his first State of the Union. Despite misplaced grumbling from conservatives, however, the fact remains that undocumented immigrants are on average far less likely to take advantage of sparse health care resources such as emergency room care and annual office visits because of prohibitive cost.
Stories like that of my coworker and the shocking number of undocumented persons who remain uninsured act as a constant reminder of this country’s desperate need for comprehensive immigration reform. This issue, much like health care before it, is one that has grown far too large to ignore. A 2008 report by the Pew Hispanic center estimated that over 11.9 million undocumented immigrants lived in the United States, 8.3 million of which were members of the U.S. labor force.
President Obama briefly underscored his commitment to tackling the issue in last week’s State of the Union address: “I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration. I am prepared to work with Republicans and Democrats to protect our borders, enforce our laws and address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows. I know that debate will be difficult and take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort. And let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who can staff our research labs, start new businesses, and further enrich this nation.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle need to heed the President’s call to action this year. We cannot ignore the basic needs of my friend X and his family, nor those of millions of families like his. We cannot ignore the fact that all across the country, children like his son are fighting illness without proper care. America should be a land of opportunity, not one of constant adversity.
For the time being, my co-workers and I have chipped in a small part of our paychecks to help X cover his son’s medical costs. But we look forward to a day when the government acknowledges all people working and living within its borders. May it come quickly.
As an Oregon resident I do not know if what you say about Illegal Trespassers is true in California or not, however I know it is not true in Oregon. In the city near my home the emergency room is filled with illegals who cannot or will not afford a doctor for basic medical treatments. This in turn drives the cost of doctor and hospital care so high in recovering said losses that most citizens cannot then afford it with out insurance. Also most insurance companies have limits on what they pay for any given procedure and that does not cover the added costs charged by the hospital intended to recover losses so that means a honest U.S. citizen cannot afford to pay it. I know this because I am one. I am an American citizen and I heard President Obama utter the lie just as Representative Joe Wilson did. I know that we not only have laws to prevent persons from sneaking across the border without medical examinations and proof that they are not indigent. I know that the Federal Government refuses to enforce the laws relating to stopping the illegals from entering across our southern borders. I know that they do almost nothing to prosecute criminals who are caught in our country smuggling drugs, smuggling people, thieving, driving with no license or insurance, Impregnating young American girls and not paying for their actions. Residents are living in fear within their own homes all along the southern border and President Obama has brought a lawsuit against the sovereign State of Arizona for enforcing Federal laws pertaining to illegal trespassers.
I feel for anyone especially a child who cannot obtain medical care. I am human just like you but look at the facts. It is possible to immigrate to this country legally. I know several persons born in other parts of the world and each of them is here legally. Specifically I know person(s) from Uganda, from India, from Philippines, Korea, Scotland, England, Trinidad, China the list goes on. All of them have one thing in common, they wanted to come here and they obeyed the immigration laws, and they are all here legally. What we need to reform is not our immigration laws it is our federal government. Somehow it has taken on a life of it’s own and no longer is a tool to perform the wishes of “We the People”. It has stopped enforcing immigration laws and is moving so quickly toward a socialist society that many of us are feeling the whiplash. I hope that those who read this comment section will give honest thought to what I have written here.
What better way to reduce prices of already expensive healthcare, which have been inflated by undocumented immigrants, by making them legal! This is a call for comprehensive immigration reform if i have ever heard one. People wouldn’t have to be undocumented and resort to criminal activity if there were only a place for them to have a regular job and an opportunity for a life out of the shadows.
I’m not saying it would be easy–this is an extremely complicated issue and it affects every person in this country. We just spent a week on immigration policy in my public policy class. Good legislation takes time to write and debate and pass, and no piece of legislation can be perfect. What I do know is waiting while families are broken apart, jobs go unfilled, and deportations continue doesn’t do us any good. We are doing ourselves and all the people looking for a place to live and work, and all the people looking for a much-needed worker a very costly disservice by excluding people from legal immigrant status.
Zoe. There is truth in your words. However unless we first seal off the border it would mean the end of our country through dilution. How many persons would leave their poor countries and move to USA if all they had to do was walk across the border. It is like the minimum wage farce. If you keep increasing the minimum wage soon it will be the only pay level. It does not elevate the wages of those earning the minimum for long because all it does is put more and more workers at the bottom wage level and spur more and more inflation. Same with undocumented immigration. Personally I like my life here and do not wish to have our lifestyle reduced to that of Mexico. Our immigration policy of admitting only a certain number in at any time and requiring them to learn our culture is vary important to the longevity of our free society. This brings me back to my somewhat “Hard nosed” attitude about closing the border and deporting many. It is not a good answer it is just that I can see no answer that is less damaging. I am not a bigot. I have friends who were born in Mexico and friends in Panama. It is not a racial or religious or any other discriminatory reason. It is about United States of America and keeping our country free and strong and about doing the right thing. Many times the right thing to do is the most difficult. I am not advocating blanket deportation. I think that disruption of anyone’s life is tragic, but the longer we take no action the worse the problem becomes. I recommend that you help vote common sense into the Whitehouse and Congress. It is wrong that our elected officials have allowed this problem to occur and they still are taking no action. If each person lost his or her job you can bet that whom ever replaced them would be more likely to do their job instead of dancing around all issues and taking no action. Our need is not for “Comprehensive Immigration reform”. Our need is for our elected ones to love our country or leave it and not keep pushing to turn it into a European style Socialist State. Enforce the laws we have on immigration. Honor election pledges. Take responsibility for the problem and stop making it into a media circus. A free capitalist society is the only reason we have this wonderful freedom and quality of life. Lets return to American values.
There is no possible way to “seal off” the Southern border. Every immigration reform since 1986 has increased the presence of border control agents; we’ve actually doubled the number of immigrants apprehended since 2001. AND, here’s a scary fact, there are more border control agents trying to “seal off” the border than there are uniformed cops in the entire United States!
Obviously, the problem is not that we have not done enough to keep people out. The problem is that the US has a very broken relationship with Mexico. NAFTA let us take resources through free trade, but specifically said that labor is not considered trade-able. NAFTA severely hurt Mexican industry, and so it should be no surprise that undocumented workers want to work in the US.
There is also no way to separate your feeling that undocumented immigrants are criminals from your racism. Sorry, the media, your history books, and our political system in general is highly racist against Mexican immigrants. But you are not alone in this. We all, myself included, have deeply ingrained racial feelings about people of color, even if we have “friends” who are of color. The positive way to deal with this is not to continue these biases, but to make a conscious effort to see everyone as equal human beings. A good way to start is to “Drop the I-Word”; by refusing to use the words of a racist system, you take a step towards giving undocumented immigrants the agency and humanity that immigration activists on both sides of the aisle should start to care about. Check it out: http://colorlines.com/droptheiword/