Nope, No Problem Here

Source: Yahoo News

Report Finds Problems on U.S., Mexico Line

WASHINGTON - If the 24 counties along the nation's Southwest border were a 51st state, it would rank first in federal crimes, second in tuberculosis and near the bottom in education, per capita income and access to health care.

But wait just a second. The President himself has assured me that illegal immigrants are an unalloyed good.

Members of the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition released a report including those estimates Wednesday as senators began to grapple with proposals for overhauling the nation's immigration system.

The 246-page study by researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso examines the social, public health, criminal and environmental challenges facing the immigration-stressed region, which includes the sprawling urban communities of San Diego and El Paso and the desert and ranch country of Arizona and New Mexico.

Local officials say they hope the results show lawmakers they need help with alleviating grinding poverty, disease and crime.

Until illegal immigration became an issue of hot national debate, Congress treated the Southwest border with "benign neglect," said Patrick Call, chairman of the Cochise County, Ariz., Board of Supervisors.

"As we move forward, it's very important to keep in mind there are many other significant issues (than immigration) that come as a result of being on the border, and frankly tremendous opportunities," he said.

The group says the report fleshes out problems they've been discussing for years. Chief among them, members say, are the high rates of disease and lack of access to health care and insurance.

The study found the region ranks last in access to health care compared with the rest of the states and 50th in number of residents with insurance. Yet the prevalence of people with tuberculosis is twice that of United States as a whole. Residents also have high rates of
AIDS, hepatitis and adult diabetes.

Local hospitals are straining to cover the cost of treating uninsured patients, said San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox, the border group's president.

"You have seen a lot of our hospitals reach the breaking point," Cox said. "Some of them are on the verge of bankruptcy, and that's a very, very, very scary scenario."

The local officials will take the information with them as they meet with members of Congress this week and later.

The study's author, Dennis Soden, said members of Congress have reason to listen. "The Southwest is what the rest of the country is going to look like in five, 30 years: Hispanic majority, very young population, immigrant population," he said. "That places a burden on the school systems, on the health system."

Hold on a second there Kimosabe, I have it on authority of the President himself that illegal immigration only benefits the country. What's all this about hospitals going bankrupt and major diseases making a comeback.

Somebodies been lying to me, I wonder who it might be?

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, bankruptcy, the border