Small Sign of Change
An article in the Times discusses the difficulties some immigrants are having in NYC getting health care. Some of the stories are touching, but attempting to solve individual hardship cases via national policy is always a bad idea. The suggestion in the article that word is starting to spread that America may not be a good place for an immigrant - particularly an illegal one - to get sick can only help reduce the inflow. But the effect is unlikely to be too large, as this little disclaimer buried in the middle of the 3,000 word article makes clear:
No one is suggesting that hospitals and clinics are seeing a decline in immigrant patients. On the contrary, as a decade of record immigration continues at an estimated annual clip of 1.2 million newcomers, the number of patients who speak little or no English is growing everywhere. And some hospitals and clinics are trying harder than ever to at least meet language needs.But still, illegal immigration is certainly a bad thing - and any steps that stop encouraging it is at least a step in the right direction.
posted by ziel | 3/03/2006 08:37:00 AM
2 Comments:
> attempting to solve individual hardship cases via national policy is always a bad idea.
> But still, illegal immigration is certainly a bad thing -
I see you are not an A-List reporter for a national newspaper. Two heresies in one short post. BTW, even if illegal immigration was a bad thing, it wouldn't matter, because there is no such thing as illegal immigrants. Just undocumented workers.
You have to give the Times some credit, though - they use the term 'illegal', not 'undocumented' (though coupled with 'resident' not 'immigrant'). Similarly, they refer to American Indians rather than 'Native Americans' and 'black' rather than 'African-American' - the Times' devotion to correct style tends to trump political correctness, at least for now.
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