Sleep well America, you made the bed.
Bump that.
Posted on 02/17/2002 10:08:40 AM PST by sarcasm
Sunday, February 17, 2002 - Most Coloradans will be surprised to learn that last year the state Medicaid program paid the hospital bill for 6,000 illegal immigrants. The average cost was $5,000 a baby, for a grand total of $30 million. Nor is that all. Because the U.S. Constitution makes every baby born in this country a U.S. citizen, those 6,000 babies immediately qualified for the full range of services provided under Medicaid, at a cost the state does not even tabulate. The qualification process for Medicaid payments to illegal immigrants isn't complicated or difficult. Pregnant women may arrive at a hospital emergency room prior to birth and declare that they lack proper documentation of immigration status (that is, that they are here illegally) and state they can't pay for care. Immigrant women aren't limited in their choice of hospitals. Denver Health (formerly Denver General) last year handled 1,850 births to illegal immigrants, or more than half of the total births in that facility. Just recently, hospital officials said they will ask taxpayers to approve a $150 million bond issue to pay for, among other things, a bigger obstetrics unit. The hospital director said the unit was built to handle 1,600 births per year but last year the total exceeded 3,500. The program that covers the cost of these births is the emergency room Medicaid program. This is not to be confused with the regular Medicaid payments or with state and federal payments to the medically indigent. Hospitals sometimes suffer in providing non-emergency indigent services because payments don't cover the full cost. In the case of emergency care to pregnant immigrant women, the bill is paid in full.
There are a couple of stunning things about these numbers. The 6,000 births to illegal immigrants are a full 40 percent of the 15,500 births paid for as part of the Medicaid fee-for-service program. Medicaid also pays for some babies through a program using HMOs, but illegal immigrants can't enroll in the HMO program. According to state officials, Medicaid now pays hospital costs for fully a third of all births in Colorado. This is a surprising percentage in view of the fact that last year was, at least until Sept. 11, a year in which the state's economy was doing very well. The births to illegal immigrants are a major factor. As for other major Medicaid expenditures, there is no effective way to measure the impact that illegal immigration is having. Some of the most expensive Medicaid cases develop from an initial hospital visit. Two years ago, for example, a premature baby case eventually produced a tab of $1 million, and neonatal cases overall averaged $195,000. What percentage of these expensive cases involved illegal immigrants was not reported. Last week, KOA Radio's Mike Rosen was interviewing Gov. Bill Owens when a female caller asked the governor why illegal immigrants seemingly had an easier time getting Medicaid coverage than do American citizens. The lady said she had been told that immigrants only had to say they were undocumented and that they needed the service. There wasn't time for the governor to fully respond, but as it turns out the lady was mostly correct. Illegal immigrants can easily get emergency room care, which includes the birth of a baby. It is not true that they can apply for and get other routine coverage under Medicaid. There is no suggestion here that medical care should be denied any person in need. What is recommended is that the media do a better job of providing information on the impact of illegal immigration on Medicaid and other programs, especially public education. If the state's voters and the American public generally have access to accurate and timely information, it may be assumed it will be taken into account every time there is a debate over border security, amnesty, guest worker proposals or any number of current government programs. There are many groups and interests that for one reason or another don't want this information to be available or to be discussed. Unfortunately, they currently outnumber and far outweigh in political influence those groups and interests that do. Al Knight (alknight@mindspring.com) is a member of The Denver Post editorial board.
It is AMERICANS who are hiring illegals. Close these criminal enterprises down, forfeiture of farms, factories and homes with a few years in the big house will change the immigration pattern.
US Code Title 8 Section 1324
(iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;
(B) A person who violates subparagraph (A) shall, for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs - (i) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i) or (v)(I)or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii), or (iv) in which the offense was done for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain, be fined under title 18,imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both;
(ii) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii),(iv), or (v)(II), be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both;
(iii) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i), (ii),(iii), (iv), or (v) during and in relation to which the person causes serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of title 18) to, or places in jeopardy the life of, any person, be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both; and
(iv) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i), (ii),(iii), (iv), or (v) resulting in the death of any person, be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined under title 18, or both.
The law is on the books, 5yrs for harboring an illegal, Linda Chavez please note, 10 yrs for employing an illegal, Tyson execs please note, and 20 yrs to the death penalty if the illegal you harbor comits a crime!.
Add to this Title 18 "Forfeiture of assets." and there are enough laws to deal with AMERICANS who hire, harbor and protect illegal immigrants.
IMHO, this is how to frame the debate. I'd like to see somebody like Tancredo propose an "Guestworker Financial Impact Statement Law" whereby the states calculate how much Bush's proposal to give amnesty to 3.5 million illegal Mexicans will cost them - schools, healthcare, policing, traffic congestion, pollution - and bill the federal government. Money could come out of application fees for guestworker status and/or special taxes on those who employ them.
Companies who employ illegal aliens profit by paying them low wages and dumping the social costs on the rest of us. It's no different than dumping untreated pollution onto public land to save money.
BINGO! I've said it before, but I'm so proud of my analogy that I'll say it again:
Illegals are the bugs and people who employ them are the porch light. You can either stand outside all night swatting at the bugs, or you can TURN OFF THE LIGHT!
Dear XXXXX:
I am writing to express my concern at Congress’s continued lack of progress in controlling this nation’s borders. While Congress talks of “amnesty” or “guest workers”, the American taxpayers shell out billions in tax dollars to pay health care, education, and other support for criminal aliens and their “anchor baby” offspring. While an illegal alien need only show up at the hospital and give birth, fully paid for by the taxpayer, our veterans face long waits and substandard care. Once born, the parents can have their own deportation deferred for the “good of the child”, never mind that they are criminals and the child made a citizen under illicit and constitutionally questionable circumstances.
This has got to stop.
Toward that end, I hope that you will take action by authoring or supporting a bill to remove automatic citizenship to children born of non-citizen parents. The language of the 14th Amendment includes a clause “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” when describing who can be made citizens by birth. THIS CLAUSE NEEDS TO BE TESTED! If a Mexican citizen is charged with a crime in the United States, that person is entitled to receive assistance from the Mexican Consulate, as the Mexican government has been so fond of pointing out in regards to certain death penalty cases involving Mexican citizen defendants. Obviously, a case can be made that children of such people are not subject to United States jurisdiction, and in fact, they only need to choose whether they’ll have US citizenship upon their 18th birthday (under current law) or retain their Mexican citizenship.
As Congress seems happy to test the 1st Amendment by passing Campaign Finance Reform, thereby removing certain Constitutional rights that do exist, I think it only fitting that a bill be introduced that removes certain rights and privileges that DO NOT EXIST. Therefore, please introduce and/or support legislation that will forever remove the “anchor baby” syndrome, and thus reduce the attraction for people to immigrate here via illegal means.
Feel free to use it or amend it as needed.
LTS
Sleep well America, you made the bed.
Bump that.
Kinda creepy. How many other countries send their pregnant women over here to claim citizenship for the next generation? When will all these German - American citizens demand their place here?
What's going on here?
I doubt that even 1% of all Germans (not Turk "guestworkers") with dual American citizenship will ever seek to live here. Why? Because Germany - unlike Mexico - is an affluent nation. Because Germany - unlike Mexico - isn't a "banana republic" pretense of a free society. Because Germans don't have to go abroad to find work.
Shouldn't that be a good thing? If these people are 'illegal', why are they still here?
My point is not that German - Americans are gonna fill up the nation.
My point was that SHE WAS SENT HERE JUST TO HAVE A BABY and go home. Her baby was to be citizenized. That's all she was here for.
How many others are doing it, and why?
Here is another one from FITZ.
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal is investigating the Harris County Hospital District. The complaint was filed by the Young Conservatives of Texas.
''I commented to several people that, 'I can't proceed without a complaint,' but with all the attention I was sure I would get one,'' he said.
The prosecutor said he agrees with an opinion issued by Texas Attorney General John Cornyn earlier this month on a 1996 federal law.
Cornyn interpreted the law to say that states cannot provide non-emergency health care to illegal immigrants unless the state legislature has enacted a law allowing such expenditures since 1996.
Cornyn said Texas has no such law and recommended that Harris County's hospital district stop offering such services.
Harris County, Dallas County, Bexar County and El Paso County have continued providing the care to illegal immigrants, saying to stop doing so would threaten public health, clog emergency rooms and result in a larger expense to taxpayers.
The law says STOP!! The hospitals say AIN'T GONNA' DO IT!! And we end up picking up the tab for these people.
When are we going to force government to do their jobs and enforce the laws? And that starts with arresting and deporting illegal aliens. What part of ILLEGAL doesn't this administration understand?
These hospital administrators also have the responsability to reort the illegal alien to the law enforcement agencies, once again the IIRIRA should be brought to bear. USC Title 8 section 1324.
iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;
It's five years per alien,toss one administrator in the can and throw away the key. Watch the reporting rate sky rocket.
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