Illegal Immigration and Health Care Reform: The Immigrant as Political Pawn

Probably the single defining moment for the health care debate was when Rep. Joe Wilson leaned forward during the president's address to congress and uttered that one exclamation, "you lie!" in response to the president's assertion that illegal aliens would not receive medical benefits under the administration's nascent health care proposals. Once the words cleared Rep. Wilson's lips, they instantly became a Rorschach inkblot test, a mirror that reflected the listener's beliefs and biases about the health care debate. Rep. Wilson apologized for the break in protocol and decorum, but there was no turning back. Some responded by hitting back in the most base and ugly manner, reading racism into his tone and his accusation, some went even further and worried furiously that his example would incite violence and lead to the second coming of the Klan. The subtext, of course was that he and people like him should shut up and beg forgiveness and absolution. The other side responded with accusations that the administration intended there to be an back-door to the health care system for illegal immigrants, yielding to pressure from LULAC and other Latino groups.

I don't subscribe to the theory that Joe Wilson's remarks were racially motivated; I think that's a cheap ploy to intimidate people and get them to shut up. Do I believe that the president was lying when he said that illegal immigrants would not receive health care under the new bill? I don't believe that the president lies; he's a Harvard trained lawyer, and lawyers never lie - they lawyer. It's impossible to know his intent, whether he intends that illegal immigrants be covered, but he's not lying when he says that the letter of the law will most likely disallow illegal aliens to receive benefits.

Intent and actual results are two different realities. Intent is impossible to determine by words or speeches, only our actions speak of our intent. From Congressman Gary Miller's website on September 11th, 2009. Congressman Miller represents the 42nd Congressional District in Southern California.

While the legislation expressly prohibits illegal aliens from receiving government-run health care, the bill does not include a specific requirement that a person prove his or her citizenship in order to obtain affordability credits, which means that illegal aliens could obtain coverage. Further, another provision states that if one member of a family is afforded coverage all members would have coverage. This means that if a child of illegal aliens is born in the United States, then the entire family becomes eligible for coverage. What is even more disconcerting is that several Republican amendments to prohibit illegal aliens from receiving coverage by closing various loopholes in the bill have been defeated in House Committees of jurisdiction. Currently, it is estimated that American taxpayers already spend over $4.3 billion each year to provide health care to illegal immigrants, primarily through emergency room visits and free clinics, and under the House bill it is estimated that providing expanded coverage to illegals could cost the government up to $30.5 billion annually.

The Baucus proposal, at least in its "conceptual" form, closes the door on illegal aliens in clearer language, and includes the means by which citizenship will be verified.

In order to prevent illegal immigrants from accessing the state exchanges obtaining federal health care tax credits, the Chairman's Mark requires verification of the following personal data. Name, social security number, and date of birth will be verified with Social Security Administration (SSA) data. For individuals claiming to be U.S. citizens, if the claim of citizenship is consistent with SSA data then the claim will be considered substantiated.

For individuals who do not claim to be U.S. citizens but claim to be lawfully present in the United States, if the claim of lawful presence is consistent with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data then the claim will be considered substantiated. Individuals whose status is expected to expire in less than a year are not allowed to obtain the tax credit. Individuals whose claims of citizenship or lawful status cannot be verified with federal data must be allowed substantial opportunity to provide documentation or correct federal data related to their case that supports their contention.

Sounds like a good, fair system, assuming that the means to verify the Social Security data is available in a readily available form. I've learned not to make such assumptions. The proposal does address the legal children of illegal parents and clearly states that though the parents will not be eligible, the children will as citizens be entitled to coverage. Again, clear and fair.

Legal U.S. residents will be able to obtain insurance through the state exchanges. Parents who are in the country illegally will not be able to buy personal insurance coverage through the state exchange but will be able to buy insurance for their U.S. citizen or lawfully present children. It remains to be seen, however, what language actually comes out of committee.

I sincerely hope that the language stands, and illegal aliens are excluded from benefits, but not for reasons that you might imagine. I myself am Mexican-American, am a native speaker of Spanish and count among my friends men who are not documented, but have children who are citizens. I don't hate immigrants - to the contrary, my life is richer because of my immigrant friends here in Houston and the immigrants from all over the world that I met in NYC in my fifteen-plus years there.

The reason that I hope that the pending legislation clearly defines the eligibility or non-eligibility of illegal aliens is because I abhor the political treatment of real, live humans by a bureaucracy that denies them full and open access to citizenship or services, yet tacitly winks at provisions built in to the system to allow them "back-door" access to the services that they need for subsistence. In doing that, the immigrants are condemned to a quasi-official status that is the moral equivalent of purgatory; neither here nor there, but being allotted enough to barely maintain a hardscrabble existence.

A poster child for the human consequences of the failure of lawmakers to act in a clear and above-board way is Karina De La Cruz in Los Angeles, who in February was featured in an LA Times article about how after excelling in high school, she was able to get accepted to UCLA, but lacked the means but couldn't get the financing because of her illegal status. The story was meant to illicit sympathy for her because of the injustice of a deserving child not getting funding for an education she worked for; but that's not the real story.

De La Cruz faces fairy tale odds. She's an illegal immigrant, so she isn't eligible for most forms of state and federal financial aid. The University of California system, by policy, does not require applicants to disclose their citizenship status: Officials say their goal is to find the best students, not to enforce immigration law. UCLA officials say they aren't even sure how many undocumented students are on their campus.

The 18-year-old De La Cruz graduated barely in the top 20% of her San Pedro High class and is competing against students with much higher GPAs and test scores. She probably doesn't have enough money to finish her first year of classes.

She has almost no safety net: She doesn't know her father, and her mother, who lives across the street, didn't get up to wish her good luck. She met a few people during orientation but doesn't have anyone she would consider a friend.

The real story is that Karina de la Cruz is the victim of an educational system and of numerous individuals who were openly complicit in allowing her to get through high school, get accepted to UCLA and who were in effect trying to game the system by aiding her in her quest to get access to a benefit to which she wasn't legally entitled. It was only when the federal financial aid system enforced its rules that her quest and her life came to a screeching and disappointing halt.

Karina de la Cruz is a pawn in a bigger game; a game in which advocates of open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens don't fighting head on for amnesty, but instead construct a parallel system of access which in the long run can only trap immigrants in a no-win, no-way-out gray area of poverty and mere subsistence. It's a world in which the dreams of girls and boys like Karina are condemned and their dreams dashed by the unintended consequences of well-intentioned idealists.

Either grant full and open access to illegal aliens under the reform on the merits of the arguments and the cost to treat them outside the system, or close the loop by requiring full and complete verification of citizenship. To create by omission a legal gray area is to condemn real live people to live gray lives in the shadows of that legal gray area.