It’s my 3 a.m. nightmare. While we do not collect information about the immigration status of our patients, the fact that they will be uninsured could be taken as ‘code’ for also being undocumented.Alicia Wilson, Executive director for the La Clinica Del Pueblo community clinic in Washington, DC • Discussing an oft-ignored side effect of the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act during an interview with Reuters. Healthcare officials fear that many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States may become more hesitant to seek medical attention following the law’s implementation, and they aren’t the only ones. “We were all aware of it,” says senior Obama healthcare advisor Ezekiel Emmanuel, adding, “It’s a visible consequence that we couldn’t do anything about given the politics of the situation.” source (via • follow)
How can our country, with a President who knows discrimination in his core, how can they continue to uphold DOMA?Vermont resident Frances Herbert • Discussing the issues her wife, Takaka Ueda, is facing. Herbert is legally married to Ueda — a native of Japan and her partner of 13 years — and in shock, after the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter denying Ueda’s request to stay in the country. Ueda moved to the US from Japan in 1999, but is now living in the country illegally and faces deportation. Vermont’s congressional delegation has even stepped in, submitting a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, asking them to reconsider. Now the couple plans to fight the ruling, and the Defense of Marriage Act in general, in hopes of preventing this from happening to anyone else. Think they’ll succeed? source (via • follow)
Our day has been hectic, hers is too, just as long as she makes it home, just as long as she gets here.Johnisa Turner • Discussing the fate of her 15-year-old daughter, Jakadrien Lorece Turner, who returned to the U.S. on Friday after mistakenly getting deported from the country in May. Jakadrien, a runaway, apparently used a fake name that just happened to be that of an undocumented immigrant from Colombia, leading to the deportation. The U.S. government and Colombian government have gone back and forth over who was at fault for the deportation — with many concerned the U.S. didn’t do due diligence when deporting the girl. source (via • follow)
» How authorities pulled it off: The “Cross Check” mission checked the records of people convicted of crimes like robbery, drug trafficking and aggravated assault to see if they were here illegally. If they were, officials deported the convicts. This does raise a few questions — such as how much authorities used racial profiling in this operation — but the silver lining is that the crackdown was at least targeted on a group. About 22 percent of those deported already had outstanding orders of deportation, by the way.
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