Once, Micronesia was the site of US atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. The health problems from the radiation persist, but the US has evaded responsibility.
Even as chaos erupts on the border with Mexico and armed forces try to keep asylum seekers from entering the United States, immigrants already legally admitted also face assault. A proposed amended “public charge” rule would make accepting standard supports like Medicaid health insurance grounds for not getting a green card.
Limits would be placed on legal migrants who have accessed benefits or other common subsidy programs and are seeking to get green cards or become citizens.
What is called an “immigration crisis” is really a crisis of humanity. Today, on World Refugee Day, we must rededicate ourselves to respond to disruptive events and shift the course of history towards justice and interdependence. This is our learning curve.
Changing our nation’s thinking about immigration is not merely a matter of data or statistics. Rather, immigration advocates, if they are to succeed, must disrupt the narrative of today’s immigrants as being “them” and establish an alternative story that includes today’s immigrants as part of “us.”
The time is ripe for leveraging the context of and conditions in the care worker work force. Done well, it may provide a blueprint for a more caring society.
When President Trump revealed he found healthcare “unbelievably complex,” he probably never considered the interactive complexity of health and immigration.
The protestors in Murrieta, California who forced buses of unaccompanied immigrant children to turn back represented the worst of America—an ugly expression of nativism that should embarrass all of us who are the children, grandchildren, and descendants of immigrants ourselves. Nonprofits and faith-based groups are helping these kids, but the solution is comprehensive immigration reform—now.
The omission of undocumented immigrants from ACA coverage may have been intended by sponsors to win over potential opponents, but it didn’t. However, it did relegate undocumented immigrants to the margins of decent healthcare, making the roles of low-cost or no-cost health clinics critical as “bridges to justice.”
Among the lessons of the 2008 presidential election was the importance of immigrant youth groups in fueling civic engagement.
