Border leaders offer agenda

By Andrew Kreighbaum / Austin Bureau
Posted: 01/29/2009 12:00:00 AM MST


AUSTIN -- Making sure more children on the border have access to health care and making travel to Mexico faster and more efficient are priorities for a group of border leaders who visited the Texas Capitol on Wednesday.
El Paso County Attorney José RodrÃ*guez and Sylvia Firth from Mayor John Cook's office attended a meeting of the Texas Border Coalition.

The group said it would push for expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.

"The reason why this is important for El Paso and the other border areas is we have the highest rates of uninsured in the country," RodrÃ*guez said.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, on Wednesday filed a bill that would expand CHIP coverage to children in households with income at or below three times the federal poverty level. The poverty line for a family of four is $21,200.

The group also plans to lobby for a new medical school in the Rio Grande Valley.

"If you get a medical school in the Valley, you are going to be training more doctors," RodrÃ*guez said.

Doctors who are trained on the border, where health-care professionals are in short supply, are more likely to stay there, RodrÃ*guez said.

The coalition also proposes $13.3 billion in transportation money to relieve congestion at border crossings in El Paso, Pharr and Laredo.

The coalition will push national leaders for comprehensive immigration reform and ask state lawmakers to avoid the topic, Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada said.

Its members will
oppose state bills that target undocumented immigrants and will lobby new U.S. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano to halt construction of the border fence in the state.

Andrew Kreighbaum may be reached at akreighbaum@elpasotimes.com


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