Anchor Babies Cost U.S. Taxpayers over $118 Billion Every
Year.
The estimate of the annual cost to provide government services, such as food, education
and health care, to these families is $118 Billion. The Alabama Federation of Republican
Women wants to take away the citizenship of babies born to illegal immigrants in the
United States.
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Cristobal Silverio emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as
a fruit picker. He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8
– all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family
had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" - an
American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in
the U.S. permanently.
But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost
the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, oldest daughter Lourdes
married an illegal alien gave birth to a daughter, too. Her name is Esmeralda. And Felipa
had yet another child, Cristian.
The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public
welfare funding for the family. Flor gets $600 a month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets
$400. While the Silverios earned $18,000 last year picking fruit, they picked up another
$12,000 for their two "anchor babies."
While President Bush says the U.S. needs more "cheap labor" from south of the
border to do jobs Americans aren't willing to do, the case of the Silverios shows there
are indeed uncalculated costs involved in the importation of such labor – public
support and uninsured medical costs.
In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing
the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to
destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes
Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we
see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than
what is seen."
According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result
of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system.
"Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly
qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs
and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income."
In addition, the report says, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that
American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis,
malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease."
While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this
country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants.
The figure could be as high as 50 percent.
Not being insured does not mean they don't get medical care.
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985, hospitals are
obligated to treat the uninsured without reimbursement....
According to the report, between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because
half their services became unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals verge on closure, the
author writes.
"American hospitals welcome 'anchor babies,'" says the
report.... Anchor babies are citizens, and instantly qualify for public welfare aid:
Between 300,000 and 350,000 anchor babies annually become citizens because of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "All persons born or naturalized in
the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and the State wherein they reside."
Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into America's medical systems, according
to the report, are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education
Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Lawyers Association,
the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono,
the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the National Council of La Raza, George Soros's Open
Society Institute, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Network for Immigration
and Refugee Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center....
Many illegals entering this country have tuberculosis, according to the report.
..."TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected
because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to
Mexico. This Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major anti-tubercular
drugs.... Latent disease explodes later....
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to
'foreign born' people who have up to eight times higher incidences apparently, 66 percent
of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam."
Other health threats from illegals include, according to the report:
Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or "kissing bug disease,"
is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face.... The
disease also infiltrates America's blood supply... No cure exists....
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease... is endemic to northeastern states because
illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and
Mexico.
Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America... Recently, according to the report, there
was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico....
Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants as do
intestinal parasites, says the report.
Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas.
The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons report includes a strong prescription for
protecting the health of Americans:
Closing America's borders with fences, high-tech security devices and troops.
Rescinding the U.S. citizenship of "anchor babies."
Punishing the aiding and abetting of illegal aliens as a crime.
An end to amnesty programs.
by WorldNetDaily.com, March 13, 2005 |
