Tag: Mexico

California/crime/General interest/Law/Lifestyle/Politics & Causes/seniors/USA
Posted on

One immigrant's plight v Arizona law

by Fran Johns

My friend Maria is among the fairly good-sized community of illegal immigrants living in San Francisco. She works hard, buys local, supports her church and her daughter’s school, adds a lot to the city and state economy and functions in every way as a model citizen except she doesn’t pay income taxes. She would like to pay those taxes, but over the years that she’s been here she has not found an opening to apply for citizenship.

Once I asked Maria about her car, a nice one on which she paid hefty sales taxes but which, of course, she drives without a license.”I just drive very, very carefully,” she said, “and keep everything perfect with the car. If you’re stopped, maybe for a turn light being out, it’s $1,000 minimum.”

“A thousand dollars?” I said; “you’re kidding.”

“They impound your car. You have to find someone with a valid license, get them to go get your car for you, plus paying the fine and all the fees.” Maria said this in a quiet voice while I exhaled.

Now, if Maria is stopped in Arizona she will simply be sent home. And this makes very little sense to me. President Obama said the Arizona law threatens “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

He also said that he is monitoring the Arizona bill for civil rights and other implications.

“If we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country,” Mr. Obama said.

In his remarks, the president didn’t offer a timetable for trying to pursue an overhaul of immigration laws in Congress.

Something seems not only unfair but un-American about making it legal for Maria to be summarily sent home after a traffic stop. Or some other kind of stop, no matter how vehemently everyone insists that racial profiling will never happen. We welcome Maria and her family in — after all, we need their labor if we’re going to eat strawberries — but once they’ve proven themselves solid citizen potential we throw them out.  Maria has cousins who were migrant workers although she herself has always been a small step up the ladder from that back-breaking job.

Admittedly, illegal immigrants come here for less than good-citizen motives. Certainly we must protect our boundaries. Arizona’s abuse-inviting law does not seem the right way to fix our immigration policies.

Obama Slams Arizona’s Immigration Bill – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

California/Lifestyle/Religion/USA/Women
Posted on

If you happen to be in Omaha

by Fran Johns

This is going on in Omaha? Omaha Nebraska? Indeed.

No one should really be surprised. My friend Ward Schumaker, a gifted artist and not exactly your run-of-the-mill conformist, comes from Omaha. He and the similarly-describable Vivienne were visiting family there once when they up and married, sending word of the event with a notation in tiny print at the bottom that read ‘Forgive us.’ I think his mother was in her eighties when she started an innovative Midnight Basketball program to help keep Omaha kids off the streets. Innovation happens in Omaha.

This morning a notice arrived in my Inbox about an open position for an intern with Project Interfaith in Omaha. Project Interfaith is, as explained below the job description, a non-profit organization dedicated to growing understanding, respect and relationships among people of all faiths, beliefs and cultures. You might want to apply.

Project Interfaith, started in 2004, is one of the younger such groups around the country with these goals. (I would be in big trouble if I failed to single out the San Francisco Interfaith Council, on whose board I serve.) There’s even an organization of organizations, the North American Interfaith Network which covers organizations and agencies in Canada, Mexico and the U.S.  Some of the others might be looking for interns too, but don’t go there if you want to get rich, other than in spirit.

Is this news, even in Omaha? Probably not. But it is worth noting, at a time when the need for understanding and respect among people of different beliefs and cultures is at an all-time high.

General interest/Health/Money/Politics & Causes/USA
Posted on

An Immigrant, Undocumented, Uninsured

by Fran Johns

I have a friend I’ll call Maria. She lives in San Francisco, but her story is very probably the same as any number of Marias in Atlanta, New York, Chicago and elsewhere. You may not know her, but I’ll bet your paths have crossed.

Maria came here from Mexico 22 years ago. She has never applied for citizenship, largely because for the first few years she was in the country her English skills were so limited it would not have been remotely possible. Recently she has been afraid to try. Maria has a 20-year-old undocumented daughter, an extraordinarily smart illegal immigrant/recent college graduate niece and a large, extended family of mostly undocumented immigrant adults and American citizen children. The niece, tired of living in a very rough part of town, went online a few years ago and found them some minimally affordable rental housing toward the ocean. They have a strong sense of belonging.

Maria and the other women clean houses for a living; the men work for landscaping companies. They drive cars without licenses because they can’t get licenses. But they are little threat due to the fact that one minor brush with the law and (Maria’s daughter explained to me in some detail) you’re out $1,000 including towing charges and fines.

Maria’s family does not do in-home care; however, there is another large, mostly undocumented community of Pacific Islanders who are highly recommended and routinely called upon when seniors (and others) here require but cannot afford extended nursing care. Not nurses by a long shot, they are nevertheless highly skilled.

Whenever Maria or other members of these communities need medical care they go to the county hospital. If the need is sudden or extreme, they go to the emergency room. Either way, they pay small amounts and they get excellent care. I’m grateful for that. They are all truly good people, honest, hard-working and contributing members of the larger community. They don’t pay income taxes (and have no Social Security accruing) but they buy local, pay their rents on time and add to the economy.

I do not support illegal immigration and am SURELY not advocating health insurance coverage for the undocumented, the very mention of which is enough to sink any reform in a New York minute. But it is a subject of contention constantly just below the national surface — or sometimes above the surface, as with the ill-mannered Joe Wilson.  As reported last week in the San Francisco Chronicle (and widely elsewhere), the current policy is clear:

Under long-standing federal policy, people who are in the United States illegally don’t qualify for federal health programs, and the current proposals for reform in Congress hold to that. With the exception of limited emergency Medicaid primarily for pregnant women and children, and some hospital funding, federal dollars do not pay for the care of people who are in the country illegally.

The health care reform bill in the House explicitly bars “undocumented aliens” from receiving federally subsidized health benefits. A Senate version doesn’t address the issue, suggesting that current policy would remain unchanged. A second Senate bill has yet to be released.

Some would have us go farther, requiring a system verifying immigrant status to be incorporated in the final health bill.

“If you don’t have a provision that clearly requires applicants’ immigration status to be verified, just to state that illegals won’t be covered is misleading,” said Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of the Alliance for a Sustainable USA in Oakland.

Opponents argue that such verification systems would add a layer of bureaucracy and cost, and unintentionally screen out U.S. citizens who lack proper documentation. They also contend that denying a segment of people access to health care, even if they are illegal residents, could increase costs for emergency care as well as the risk for contagious disease in the general population.

However angry those are who are raising their voices about “illegal aliens,” that last sentence is worth consideration. If you cannot bring yourself to care much about the health of uninvited fellow residents of our corner of the planet, you may still want to look at this reality: treating colds in emergency rooms is an expensive folly; colds left untreated for want of an option breed more colds.

A lot of the anger is easy to understand. The economy has tanked, times are tough, you gotta blame somebody. But until all we documented citizens are ready to quit eating strawberries and drinking wine, and to forgo such niceties as in-home care and mopped kitchens, we would probably do well to care about the lives of our undocumented neighbors.

Via: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/11/MN4A19GI9I.DTL#ixzz0R040rESh