Thread: Eye exams debated for kids in country illegally

Eye exams debated for kids in country illegally
Politics has pull in eligibility question

The News and Observer (NC), February 2, 2007
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/538700.html

A state commission some deemed unnecessary from its start dived this week into a debate that could generate even more heat -- whether illegal immigrants should be eligible for a new state benefit.

The Governor's Commission on Early Childhood Vision Care is charged with setting eligibility requirements for a new effort to pay for eye exams and glasses for children from low-income families.

Some commission members say children in the country illegally should not be disqualified from a benefit that could help them in the classroom.

Other members, though, say they don't want to attract unwanted attention by offering public services to children who are in North Carolina illegally.

'I want to avoid criticism and spending money on something we shouldn't be spending money on,' said Hal Herring, an optometrist from Robeson County.

The commission is weighing educational benefits against political fallout at a time when politicians in North Carolina and other states are focused on limiting public services for illegal immigrants.

Last year, Georgia passed a law requiring residents to verify their citizenship before they receive public services. Virginia is debating a proposed law to cut off state and local money from charities that serve illegal immigrants.

Such activity is a reflection of worries about the cost of illegal aliens to education, health-care and law enforcement budgets, said John Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington research group that wants stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

States are trying to control a problem that President Bush and Congress have failed to solve, he said.

N.C. perspectives

Some North Carolina legislators express similar misgivings about public benefits for illegal immigrants.

At a briefing on Medicaid this week, for example, North Carolina lawmakers questioned the $61 million spent last year to provide medical care for aliens and refugees, part of $8.6 billion in total Medicaid spending in the state.

State Sen. Harry Brown, a Republican from Jacksonville, asked for a county-by-county accounting of Medicaid payments for that group, some of whom might be here legally. Federal law allows Medicaid payments for emergency medical treatment for illegal immigrants.

Later, Brown said he would not want state money used to pay for eye exams and glasses for illegal immigrants. The issue is difficult because it involves children, he said, 'but I think you have to start somewhere.'

In most cases, illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid benefits. That left some members of the vision care commission pondering ways that some poor children could get help under the new eye test program.

The decision could bring added scrutiny to a commission already in the public eye.

Born in controversy

Controversy surrounded the law that led to the commission and rules for vision tests. At first, the 2005 law required comprehensive eye exams for children entering kindergarten. Children who did not get the full eye exams could have been barred from attending school. Former House Speaker Jim Black, a Mecklenburg County optometrist, had the requirement written into the state budget with little public debate.

The law spurred a lawsuit from school boards and criticism from pediatricians and ophthalmologists, who said full exams for most 5-year-olds are medically unnecessary.

Some legislators pushed last year to repeal the law, but it was watered down instead. Rather than require such exams, the law now strongly recommends comprehensive eye exams for young children.

The commission is responsible for deciding which children are eligible to share in the $500,000 in state money set aside for eye exams and glasses for poor children from kindergarten through third grade.

Rep. Linda Coleman, a Knightdale Democrat who worked last year to reshape the law, said legislators did not consider excluding children from the benefit based on their residency status.

'Children are children,' she said. 'Their health is important.'

Dr. Peter Morris, a commission member and pediatrician who works for Wake County, pushed the commission to allow children in the country illegally to qualify for the money. He found support from Scott Philippe, a Charlotte optometrist, and Jennifer Garrett, president of the School Nurse Association of North Carolina.

School nurses have to scramble to find doctors willing to examine children whose parents cannot pay, Garrett said.

'I don't think a child should suffer for their parent being documented or undocumented,' she said.

Commission Chairman H. Michael Johnson, an optometrist from Nash County, postponed a decision because members could not agree.

'We don't want to open the commission to criticism,' he said. 'At the same time, we want to take care of all the children.'

There should be no issue to debate. THEY ARE ILLEGAL.

I am sick of hearing about debates that could help illegal's. Being illegal means you have no voice in America.

They just keep scraping it all up from the bottom!

I really only take one position on the issue of children being illegal, unless they came in on there own.
I am a father first, but I will not allow my feelings for children as a parent to out weigh the sadness that the illegal soon to be dearly deported cause there own children (If that makes any since) then read on.
We teach children to follow parents at all cost.
So in the same manner we raise our children are the Illegal soon to be dearly deported children raised in those ways.
I would seem to think the values are different. If they come here with the illegal intent only. WHICH NO ONE WILL ADMIT BUT ALL SEEM TO HAVE
The child foster care system will need to step in if the parents are about to be deported, which will raise a cost issue where the states would have to pay. Well tough doo doo the states let it get out of hand this far then the states can clean the mess up. Other wise pack your kids clothing, and take the kids with you back to the place you came from and I don’t mean the state you stayed in last week.
I will say give the children any and all medical care they need till they leave and forward any findings to the doctors in the home country. There shouldn’t be any school records they are here illegally in the first place.
As to the rest of the problems look at it like this
If you, I or even good old GB was to be charged and convicted of a federal crime our children would be come part of the system, and we are American citizens . So the soon to be dearly deported family needs to live with the same facts of life.
See ya, bye, bye tell mom ya love her.
O you want to go with mom
See ya bye bye!!!
Nice visit I hope see ya bye bye

Originally Posted by GREGAGREATAMERICAN

soon to be dearly deported

I love that phrase and pray it'll be so.......and soon!

Originally Posted by cvangel

Originally Posted by GREGAGREATAMERICAN

soon to be dearly deported

I love that phrase and pray it'll be so.......and soon!

LOL. Permanently!

whose parents cannot pay

This garbage about illegals are "poor" and cannot pay is just wrong. These people may live and act poor and penniless, but they aren't. They sent over 45 billion dollars back last year, $300-400 per month. They share houses, cars, food, and have wads of cash. Many of you have seen people whip out these fistful's of bucks at the grocery, but still paid with a WIC card. It's not they can't pay, they won't pay! They have much more disposable income than the same legal person with the same income and circumstances. They have come to expect to be given everything and anything and know how to play the "poor immigrant" game. Illegal does not equate to being "poor" necessarily and the system needs to recognize this.

Your right about the money thing,
They have loads of it and the proof is in the pudding.
One crew leader in the drywall trades makes off each house approximately$ 2000.00.
He pays out maybe 500 per day, but he does 10 houses in a week in the summer.
Most of the illegal I have run into personally are making cash at the amounts of between 50 to 125 a day now that’s just one trade and if the guys aren’t paying into ss and pays no fed tax he’s clearing about 600 per week at the labor level and about 16000 a month on the leader level as long as it is quality work.
That tells me there is some really mad AMERICANS THAT CANT FEED THERE FAMILIES JUST CAUSE OF THIS
I SO POOR DEAL
THEY ARE CRYING CROCK TEARS

Dawg gonnit! In Arizona, a judge ruled several years ago that the state must continue providing dialysis to illegal aliens who need it. Prior to that, they were always showing up at emergency rooms in bad shape and getting that emergency treatment for free as well.