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Continued Debate on the Illegal Immigration and "free handouts".

U.S. Citizenship and Health Care

Someone overstated the problem (no surprise in this group) earlier in this discussion.  It is fact that "several" McDonalds (mostly on the west side) in a lot of cities are "managed" by Spanish speaking Mexicans. Yes, almost all the "help" also use Spanish - some really do not understand English - but the ones at the counter/cash register do understand enough English to take orders.  As with young people of any language, they tend to not pay enough attention to detail.  The managers (all with good English) are trying to correct the problems.  I do visit McDonalds, and at, at least two of this family's stores; there are a  lot of Spanish only customers - could not be served properly if the employees did not know Spanish.  You should know this is a great business advantage. 

I approve of two languages (or more) to help business.  I do feel strongly that the first language of any US business should be English.  I do not feel any "illegal" should be given any aid of any kind.  I believe anyone who hires an illegal should be in jail.  Yes, you should/could prove they knew.  Most would not come if they knew anyone hiring them would go to jail, and they would get no aid.  Cutting the illegal’s aid, would give money for controlled work visas. 
No one should be given a free ride to citizenship. No language but English should be on any citizenship papers.  Work visas would still have to have three languages, and in some cases more - no problem. 

Regarding the cost of healthcare:  I happen to know one old retired couple's finances pretty well, and don't think we are too far from the norm.  So far just this year, our insurance cost went up about 37%.   What the insurance does not pay for went up about 30 to 40%.  Our income went up about 3%.  The insurance companies know most people can not afford to go to the Dr. as often as they should.  They are betting we will die before they have to pay for the bigger problems that could have been corrected earlier as small problems, with a lot less cost.  If everyone went to the Dr. when they should, the overall cost would go down.  For everyone. 

Trying to write about the patient who lived on the edge of my black hole just causes too much stress - takes my head out of it.  I'll try to explain later. 

All of the "above" is just more of one persons opinion.
-Logan, Moderate, TN

I am not surprised that your opinions on the issues are based on facts.  Also, I am not surprised that your opinions reflect compassion.  There is something most people don't know, primarily because everyone is having so much fun not telling them.  So here's some additional facts for you to consider.

In 1996, Newt Gingrich and his band of meanies in the "contract on America" congress passed a law that made it impossible for illegals to get any kind of assistance from the federal government and the states and municipalities have pretty much followed suit (they have to for programs that get federal bucks).  Everything from Medicaid to Food Stamps to housing assistance...to the Social Security benefits they had qualified for by paying Social Security taxes.  That law is still in place and a part of it that was really, really mean has now kicked in...starting last year, no welfare assistance of any kind could be paid unless they became citizens.  Now, that may sound easy enough...you're here legally, you study for the citizenship test, you pass, you're a citizen.  But it's not nearly as simple as that.

The immigration/naturalization offices, now under Homeland Security, aren't there to help people.  It's not like they help applicants fill out the mounds of extremely complex paperwork.  (For example, just to get residency, the paperwork includes giving every address you have ever lived at and the dates you lived there...if you have lived at only a few places, that's easy...if you're a migrant worker, that's almost impossible.)  So anyone who wants to get legal has to save up the money to hire an immigration attorney.  And the problem is that an awful lot of immigration attorneys aren't really attorneys and don't really help people.  They just take the money.  Rarely are they prosecuted.  After some trial and error, and lots more money, you might finally find someone who really does help you fill out the papers and then you pay them and then you make out big checks to Homeland Security to process your paperwork...and then you wait...for months, for years.  In the meantime, if you move or if you're evicted or if something changes in your life circumstances that requires changing your paperwork, you have to do more paperwork and pay more money and wait longer.  And if your house is robbed or if it burns down or if you're otherwise separated from your copies of the paperwork, good luck.  You then have to hope that whoever you hired to fill out your papers, who you've already paid and been done with, is willing to look through their files to give you another copy.  Good luck with that too.  That's just to get work permits or residency.  And if you have a wife or children who also need legal status, you multiply all of that by the number of people in your family. 

To get citizenship, you go through all of the above and you have to somehow find the money to pay for citizenship classes, English classes, find the time to study for the test, and wait and wait and wait.   And hope your address doesn't have to change while you're waiting because then you'll have the complications and extra expense related above. 

The main thing is this:  we have never funded Immigration and Naturalization

Services adequately because the people served by that government office are not able to vote.  So nobody cares if they're given decent service.  The service at those offices is about what you would expect from a government office in a third world country...no assistance and you need a ton of money to get anything done.  And they're incredibly rude about providing no service, just to add insult to injury, because, as you might imagine, they have about half the employees they need to do the work they're supposed to do.  If all you have is a work permit, you have to renew your paperwork every year.  "Permanent" residency is good for about ten years.  When the cards need to get renewed, or if they're lost (as often happens when people are poor and have unstable living arrangements, live in high crime areas) you have all the paperwork to do again.  And you have to have money again to pay for help to fill out the applications.  And only recently, they about doubled the amount it costs to get these I.D’s or to file citizenship applications.  Hundreds of dollars expected from people who make minimum wage or, in many cases, actually less.

So when you hear about illegal’s, keep in mind that a-they're not getting aid except from private charities or in extreme emergency situations, like bleeding out at a car accident and b-getting legal status is a money pit and a time pit for people who have little of either.  They're too busy working 50-60 hours a week planting, picking and packing the food we eat.

Sorry this is so long.  I have facts for your consideration regarding language issues also, but that will have to wait for another day unless you want to spend a lot of time reading my emails.

-Barbara, Democrat, WA