Nbadan
07-24-2006, 04:48 AM
Excellent column this week by Victor Landa about myths surrounding the Immigration debate
Victor Landa: Oft repeated immigrant myths can mislead a nation
Web Posted: 07/23/2006 06:17 PM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
One of the biggest problems for anyone trying to make sense of the immigration debate is sifting through the myths and fallacies that have become de facto truths by virtue of repetition.
The idea is that if you hear something several times from multiple sources, it must be true. Those ideas sometimes make their way to the highest level of political discourse, where one would think the truth is filtered from the lies.
Case in point: On July 11, U.S. Rep. Steven King of Iowa went on a tirade on the floor of the House and entered into the congressional record a series of statements so false and outrageous that to let them stand would be inexcusable. King stands firmly on the side of the debate that wants to shut the southern border out of fear of an "invasion" of Mexicans whose goal is to take jobs, reap social services at the cost of taxpaying Americans and contaminate the pristine current of the American way of life.
In fact, he not only wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, he wants to top it with "a little bit of wire ... to provide a disincentive for people to climb over the top."
According to The Hill, King went on to say, "We could also electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time."
His aides were quick to say he was comparing fences to fences and in no way equating immigrants to livestock. Either way, you get the idea of where his thinking is based.
On May 28, King was speaking on the floor of the House when he said, "How many of them (read here: undocumented immigrants) will fundamentally forever alter the United States and put a burden on our services that we can never recover from? What is that number?" The conventional wisdom here is that undocumented immigrants siphon public coffers in the form of services they don't pay for. Chief among the services mentioned are education and health care, specifically emergency room care.
But the problem with financing education does not lie on the shoulders of immigrants because these workers have to live somewhere. They pay rent or a mortgage, and in either case, directly or indirectly, they pay property taxes. The issue is that they are mostly lower income earners and their children fill classrooms in poor, mostly inner city schools where a dollar is stretched beyond its capacity to properly educate their students. The issue is the public education financing scheme, not immigrants, because even without immigrants public schools would be hard pressed to make ends meet.
The other issue is health care, where the myth states that undocumented immigrants are a burden to the system and that they take more than they contribute. But there is reason to counter that myth with facts. According to research done by the Center for Studying Health System Change, based in Washington, communities with "lots of uninsured, immigrant or Hispanic residents ... generally had lower rates of emergency department use than those with low numbers of uninsured or noncitizen residents."
The author of the study, Peter Cunningham, says, "Hispanic immigrants — a high number of whom are uninsured — are not heavy users of (emergency departments) compared with other individuals, including whites with private insurance."
"Their numbers," he added, "are too small in the vast majority of communities nationwide to have a major impact on the health care system in those communities."
These are his numbers: "Noncitizens in 2003 on average had about 17 fewer emergency room visits per 100 residents than citizens, while uninsured people had on average 16 fewer visits per 100 than Medicaid patients, 20 fewer visits per 100 than Medicare patients, and roughly the same rate as privately insured people."
The real problem with the immigration debate is the widespread acceptance of myths and the people who propagate them. And if we are to enter this national discussion with the vigor that the tradition of American debate demands, then we should do it armed with fact and reason.
Fact: Immigrants are not cattle and they don't clog or drain our health care or education systems.
MYSA.com (http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA072406.2O.landa.5b9f97.html)
Victor Landa: Oft repeated immigrant myths can mislead a nation
Web Posted: 07/23/2006 06:17 PM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
One of the biggest problems for anyone trying to make sense of the immigration debate is sifting through the myths and fallacies that have become de facto truths by virtue of repetition.
The idea is that if you hear something several times from multiple sources, it must be true. Those ideas sometimes make their way to the highest level of political discourse, where one would think the truth is filtered from the lies.
Case in point: On July 11, U.S. Rep. Steven King of Iowa went on a tirade on the floor of the House and entered into the congressional record a series of statements so false and outrageous that to let them stand would be inexcusable. King stands firmly on the side of the debate that wants to shut the southern border out of fear of an "invasion" of Mexicans whose goal is to take jobs, reap social services at the cost of taxpaying Americans and contaminate the pristine current of the American way of life.
In fact, he not only wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, he wants to top it with "a little bit of wire ... to provide a disincentive for people to climb over the top."
According to The Hill, King went on to say, "We could also electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time."
His aides were quick to say he was comparing fences to fences and in no way equating immigrants to livestock. Either way, you get the idea of where his thinking is based.
On May 28, King was speaking on the floor of the House when he said, "How many of them (read here: undocumented immigrants) will fundamentally forever alter the United States and put a burden on our services that we can never recover from? What is that number?" The conventional wisdom here is that undocumented immigrants siphon public coffers in the form of services they don't pay for. Chief among the services mentioned are education and health care, specifically emergency room care.
But the problem with financing education does not lie on the shoulders of immigrants because these workers have to live somewhere. They pay rent or a mortgage, and in either case, directly or indirectly, they pay property taxes. The issue is that they are mostly lower income earners and their children fill classrooms in poor, mostly inner city schools where a dollar is stretched beyond its capacity to properly educate their students. The issue is the public education financing scheme, not immigrants, because even without immigrants public schools would be hard pressed to make ends meet.
The other issue is health care, where the myth states that undocumented immigrants are a burden to the system and that they take more than they contribute. But there is reason to counter that myth with facts. According to research done by the Center for Studying Health System Change, based in Washington, communities with "lots of uninsured, immigrant or Hispanic residents ... generally had lower rates of emergency department use than those with low numbers of uninsured or noncitizen residents."
The author of the study, Peter Cunningham, says, "Hispanic immigrants — a high number of whom are uninsured — are not heavy users of (emergency departments) compared with other individuals, including whites with private insurance."
"Their numbers," he added, "are too small in the vast majority of communities nationwide to have a major impact on the health care system in those communities."
These are his numbers: "Noncitizens in 2003 on average had about 17 fewer emergency room visits per 100 residents than citizens, while uninsured people had on average 16 fewer visits per 100 than Medicaid patients, 20 fewer visits per 100 than Medicare patients, and roughly the same rate as privately insured people."
The real problem with the immigration debate is the widespread acceptance of myths and the people who propagate them. And if we are to enter this national discussion with the vigor that the tradition of American debate demands, then we should do it armed with fact and reason.
Fact: Immigrants are not cattle and they don't clog or drain our health care or education systems.
MYSA.com (http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA072406.2O.landa.5b9f97.html)