Thread: America should welcome Hispanic immigrants

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Monday, December 19

America should welcome Hispanic immigrants
We need a fair guest worker program and respect for our neighbors' dignity.

Published: Monday, December 19, 2005 - 6:00 am

By Mark O'Rourke

Illegal immigration of Hispanics into the United States has become a hot topic. There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, with 45,000 to 75,000 in South Carolina. Many work in low-wage and hazardous industries, such as agriculture and construction.

Unfortunately, these illegal immigrants lack access to public assistance, health insurance coverage or the ability to fully integrate into the larger American society. They are often targets of employment exploitation that amounts to economic slavery. They are often victims of crime, but they fear asking the police for help. They often live in inadequate housing, go without health care, risk injury on the job and endure social, educational and civic deprivation.

The presence of illegal Hispanic immigrants in the United States has provoked many fears among U.S. citizens. These include a sense of inconsistent chaos in our immigration policy, higher unemployment among American citizens, public benefits going to noncitizens, loss of English as our national language and increased risk of terrorism.

Suggestions trumpeted on television, in newspaper columns and in political speeches include "rounding them up" and deporting them back to Mexico, building an impenetrable wall along the Mexican border, and stronger domestic laws to isolate illegal immigrants from the rest of society. "Amnesty" has become a dirty word, used to bash attempts to create a guest worker program, to oppose proposals to integrate illegal immigrants into the legal work force and to block efforts to assist the millions of illegal immigrants living in poverty and exploitation at the margins of our society.
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This state of affairs is an unfortunate tragedy. Our society should do better and we can do better in caring for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

First, we citizens of the United States need to acknowledge that the problem is not merely 11 million people breaking U.S. law who should be treated as criminals. Indeed, it is jobs in our economy and the hope of a better life that draw Hispanics from Mexico, Central and South America to the United States. We allow them to work in our hotels and restaurants, in our agricultural fields and on our construction crews, while we tolerate a pervasive "don't ask, don't tell" status quo and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Second, we citizens of the United States have a practical interest in having these 11 million people registered in guest worker programs that allow them to be healthy, safe and secure and to be productive members of our society. When we have a transparent, realistic policy that makes it more attractive to enter the United States legally through regular border crossings and be legally registered than it is to enter illegally and be undocumented, then we will be able to secure our borders and be able to deal with the employment, health care, education, auto insurance and many other problems that arise from the current situation.

Third, these illegal Hispanic immigrants in our midst are our neighbors. They are men, women and children with needs, hopes and dreams like ours. They are people with whom we share the North American continent. The United States is a welcoming nation with a long history of successful immigration. It respects human rights, offers educational and economic opportunity and cares about the weak and less fortunate. We will do well to preserve these values as we deal with today's immigration issues.

So what should South Carolina citizens do about the illegal immigration problem?

First, support and advocate a fair and just guest worker program. They need the work and we the workers. Both they and we need a legal, transparent and realistic guest worker program.

Second, tone down the rhetoric about a wall, U.S. troops or vigilantes to seal the Mexico border. It is neither practical nor possible to seal the border, and everyone knows it.

Third, send this message to our political leaders as individuals, as civic groups, as political party members, as churches, as businesses, as charities and as voting citizens. Our city and county elected officials, our state representatives and senators and our congressmen and senators all need to hear from large numbers of citizens that South Carolina and the United States urgently need:

1) a fair and just guest worker program, and

2) an approach to the illegal immigration program that respects the humanity and dignity of our Hispanic brothers and sisters.

Mark O'Rourke, M.D., a physician in Greenville and Seneca, specializes in hematology and oncology. He has taken a particular interest in indigent cancer care, has served on several medical advisory committees and currently is president of the Greenville County Medical Society. Readers may write to him at mark@orourkeplace.com.

Aaawww, shut-up "Doc". Tend to your meds and let regular folk handle the politics.

I've GOT to send this to my brother and have him fire off a letter to the Editor of the Greenville News. This man is some left-wing bleeding hearter!

this confirms my opinion that the upper crust don't expect to be displaced any time soon , so they arent feeling the crunch-
since ive learned to paste and copy - thanks to John- I think I will send hom a copy of the poster boy of illegal immigration: Hernandez

A oncologists whose interest is indigent cancer care? Of course he wants the illegals legalized. They're his patients so he, too, is looking out for his own back pocket.

I just went to the Greenville website, opinion section. Seems the good doctor's in the minority as far as guest workers are concerned.

LOVE your Christmas tree, had_enuf. AIN'T this FUN??!!!

this article gives me the idea that Mark O'rouke wants to keep illegals on medicaid because he takes it- and I have nothing against medicaid but it should be for citizens only.


By Liv Osby
HEALTH WRITER
losby@greenvillenews.com


Critics fear a preferred drug list for psychiatric medicines may hurt some patients. OWEN RILEY JR./Staff





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Taxpayers might save millions of dollars every year under a proposal that would establish a preferred drug list for Medicaid patients with certain conditions, but advocates for the mentally ill worry the savings would be at the expense of patients.
Under the state's Medicaid program, beneficiaries with hypertension, for example, must be prescribed blood pressure medication from a preferred drug list. To order other drugs for that condition, physicians need prior authorization from Medicaid.

The policy helps keep drug costs down, said Dr. Mark O'Rourke, an oncologist with CancerCenters of the Carolinas and a member of the state's Medicaid Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee.

But there is no preferred drug list for mental illnesses, HIV or cancer, conditions that the state Legislature carved out of the regulations. And that means the state is "pouring tens of millions down the drain," said O'Rourke, who has written to Gov. Mark Sanford asking that a preferred drug list be established for those illnesses.

While the idea sounds reasonable on the surface, it poses some problems for mentally ill people, said Dave Almeida, executive director of the South Carolina chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Many patients must try several drugs before finding the one, or the combination, that works for them, he said. Others find the side effects of some drugs intolerable.

"There is no one size fits all here," Almeida said. "We believe that psychiatrists and patients need to have the flexibility to try all the medications.

"And the problem with prior authorization is the doctor has to pick up the phone, fill out a form, submit it to Medicaid â€â€

Originally Posted by Bootsie

LOVE your Christmas tree, had_enuf. AIN'T this FUN??!!!

Thanks Bootsie!

I don't allow them to work in my hotel. Wait, I don't have a hotel. I'm too poor because the illegals are busy undercutting my wages (actually, that's not true because what I do needs a specialized degree and a state license so phew, my job is safe...for now).

What do you mean they don't have health care? All they need to do is walk into any emergency room and they have instant health care.

No house? Squalid living conditions? Just get a tax id number. There are plenty of banks willing to take their money and give them a shiny new mortgage.

If they really do follow through on REAL immigration reform, this person needs to be drug out onto the street and branded a traitor.

NO HEALTH CARE??? AMERICANS, like me, are the ones who are STRUGGLING TO PAY EXHORBITANT PREMIUMS FOR PRIVATE HEALTH CARE POLICIES while THEY are getting theirs FREE. AND, we are paying for that too. It's hard enough for me to keep up premiums for MYSELF much less a bunch of illegal ---------------! (SO AND SO'S!)

Squalid living conditions??? If THEY CHOOSE TO LIVE 20 to a house so THEY can send THEIR money back to Mexico, that's a CHOICE they've made. AND, if they are TOO DAMN SORRY TO CLEAN THEIR HOMES, actually use the INDOOR PLUMBING rather than the YARD, then I have NO PITY.