Undocumented Immigrant's Child: Poverty and No Health Insurance

Undocumented immigrants are having lots of kids.  That is no surprise.  Especially since people can't go back and forth to their home countries like they used to.  

What seems to bother many people is that the kids born here are American citizens.  If it was a non-issue, the Washington Post wouldn't put it on the front of their web page.

It isn't surprising is that at least 25% of these kids don't have health insurance and 33% are living in poverty.  This shouldn't be a shock because our system makes it near impossible for working people to have health insurance for their kids - its got to be much harder for undocumented immigrants.  For one, the cost of insurance is sky high, nearly a thousand dollars a month.  In addition, many undocumented people are now working on a cash basis because of employer's concerns about ICE raids, which means no insurance for sure.

As for poverty, what can be expected if people are not able to drive.  That severely limits the possibility of a good job.  Most American cities do not have good mass transit.  In addition, "living in the shadows" is not conducive to having any kind of a career.

In Western society, being poor usually means that something is wrong with a person.  We rarely look past the immediate evidence.  We are blind to the larger issues behind immigrant poverty.  We think they are poor because something is wrong with them; that they are uneducated because they are not intelligent or they didn't want an education.  The truth is that poverty is about larger societal issues.  It is about the value of human beings and is it about our country, who doesn't think of much of having millions of poor children around (born of U.S. citizens or of immigrants).  If it really mattered to us, we would do much more to erase poverty in America.

As for immigrants, even with all the problems, the desire to have children never goes away.  Of course there will be children.  They are the hope of the future for many families.  They are the kids that will go to college, even though their parents cannot read or write.  They may not have health insurance, but they will eat better and live better than their parents.  Remember that many people who immigrate come from places where it has been impossible to have enough food to eat.

If you don't believe me, look on the web for photos of the shanty towns in Mexico City and Monterrey.  One look should convince you.

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Number of Children Born to Illegal Immigrants Grows Rapidly
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 14, 2009; 1:42 PM

The number of U.S.-citizen children born to illegal immigrants has dramatically increased over the past five years from 2.7 million in 2003 to 4 million in 2008, according to a study released today.

The report by the nonpartisan, Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center also found that more than a third of such children were in poverty in 2007, compared with about 18 percent of those born to either legal immigrants or U.S.-born parents. Similarly, one in four U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants went without health insurance in 2008, compared with 14 percent of those born to legal immigrants and 8 percent born to U.S.-born parents...

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