Thread: 2 Articles, different Times, Same Place, Connect The Dots

Katrina Begets a Baby Boom by Immigrants


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/us/na ... ei=5087%0A

By EDUARDO PORTER
THEN
Published: December 11, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — First came the storm. Then came the workers. Now comes the baby boom.

Dr. Robert Post, the Medical Director of Daughters of Charity Services, examining a Guatemalan man at their clinic in Metairie.

In the latest twist to the demographic transformation of New Orleans since it was swamped by Hurricane Katrina last year, hundreds of babies are being born to Latino immigrant workers, both legal and illegal, who flocked to the city to toil on its reconstruction.

The throng of babies gurgling in the handful of operational maternity wards here has come as a big surprise — and a financial strain — to this historically black and white city, which before the hurricane had only a small Latino community and virtually no experience of illegal immigration.

“Of all the myriad things that have changed after Katrina, this wasn’t high on anybody’s priority list,â€

Because many immigrant mothers cannot afford to pay for prenatal care or delivery services, New Orleans’s newest citizens are adding an unexpected load to the decimated health infrastructure in a city abandoned by many of its doctors. Much of the state-financed Charity Hospital system, which before Hurricane Katrina provided the bulk of care to New Orleans’s uninsured and indigent population, remains closed.

THEY ARE NOT CITIZENS OF THE US!!! They are illegal aliens who breed like jackrabbits and are hurting the very people who lost everything to Katrina!

When Ms. Alvarado finally got to New Orleans, brought into the country by coyotes, or smugglers, who charged $6,000, she was more than six months pregnant. The last time she had seen a doctor was four months before.

She had $6000 to blow on a smuggler and WE have to pay for her having another kid? Disgraceful!!

This belongs in the News Section. I am moving it there.