Chuck Schumer Demands Free Health Care for More Illegal Migrants

Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer is urging President Donald Trump to provide more American health care to illegal migrants.

Schumer’s demand comes just after Trump’s deputies quietly agreed September 2 to allow at least 1,000 illegals to stay in the United States so they can receive expensive health care for a variety of lethal, enduring and debilitating diseases. But the Labor Day announcement also suggested officials would try to reduce the future approvals of “deferred action” for sick foreigners.

“This half measure by the Trump administration isn’t enough,” Schumer responded by tweet. “The Trump administration must pledge to continue this critical protection for children and families being treated for serious illnesses like cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis,’ he tweeted.

Schumer’s demand may be intended as a gift to Joe Biden, who has been using the issue to spike support among the pro-migration progressives who prefer to blur the distinctions between Americans and foreigners:

The agencies “are giving notice to these families that they’ve got to unplug their kids and get them out of hospitals and take them out of America,” Biden told a campaign event in Rock Hill., S.C. He continued:

We’re 300,000,000-plus people and the idea that we can’t tolerate saving the lives — or trying to help save the lives — of hundreds of children in deep need is just wrong. It is wrong. It has to stop. Like so many others have said, cruelty is the point here. It is their only point, It all the have to run on — fear, anger, division, cruelty. So this can’t just be a [presidential] campaign about Donald Trump, it has to become a movement.

But any Democrat push to provide free health care to illegals would be extremely risky, according to data buried in the August 2019 Harvard-Harris Poll. The respondents showed they prefer to welcome migrants, but only 30 percent of Democrats and 20 percent of swing-voting independents said: “immigrants who are here illegally [should] be able to collect welfare, disability and healthcare payments from the state and federal governments.”

Nearly all Americans have some form of health insurance, but many have difficulty paying the monthly payments and deductibles. The costs are nudged up by the free health care provided to the resident population of at least 12 million illegal migrant workers and consumers.

On August 30, 127 House and Senate Democrats — including 2020 candidate Sen. Liz Warren — sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security asking for more information about the “deferred action” approvals which allow illegals to stay for medical reasons:

Individuals requesting deferred action from USCIS are among the most vulnerable. Children and families submit such requests due to severe medical conditions like cancer, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis. In many cases, these treatments are life-saving …  On its face, this change represents another cruel action by the Trump Administration to attack our most vulnerable immigrant neighbors. We therefore urge you to immediately reverse this inhumane and unnecessary policy and to approve the pending medical deferment requests.

The letter suggests that the Democrats plan to hold hearings on the issue in late September.

DHS dropped the policy change on Labor Day, likely because it provided an emotional campaign point for Biden.

But the agency also implied it would narrow the future award of ‘deferred action approvals:

Today, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services [USCIS] announced it will reopen non-military deferred action cases that were pending on August 7.  Letters will be sent this week re-opening all cases that were pending on August 7.

On August 7, USCIS stopped its consideration of deferred action for non-military requestors. At that time, USCIS sent out letters informing those who had requested deferred action that USCIS was no longer entertaining such requests. Deferred action is a discretionary determination to defer the deportation of an individual who is illegally present in the United States as an act of prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis.  Those denied requests that were pending on August 7 did not have removal orders pending, and have not been targeted for deportation.

While limiting USCIS’ role in deferred action is appropriate, USCIS will complete the caseload that was pending on August 7.

The quick reversal, the emotional media coverage, and the limited information have sidelined the policy issues created by the federal government’s quiet, informal policy of allowing some illegals to stay in the United States to get free health care.

Current laws require hospitals to provide taxpayer-funded, life-saving care to arrivals, including illegals who overstay their visitor visas. But the “deferred action” policy also allows chosen migrants to get work permits and legal protections while they or their children also get medical care.

Government officials have not revealed how many illegals have been allowed to stay for life-saving care, nor the estimated cost of caring for the foreigners. Officials have also not explained how they select the lucky few foreigners who are allowed to “deferred action” stay, amid the many, many millions of sick foreigners in Africa, Asia, India, South America, and Europe who are dying of treatable diseases.

Anecdotal reports say many illegals come to American for care. Other working illegals become ill from diabetes and other diseases as they grow older in the United States.

If agency officials use an ad-hoc, informal process when awarding “deferred action,” then legislators and administration officials can quietly grant lifesaving care to foreigners who are likely to provide some direct or indirect benefit to politicians. But a formal process also would be risky because it would help legislators, agency officials, judges, immigration lawyers, business groups, and ethnic interest groups to gradually expand the legal inflow of foreign patients into American hospitals.

The policy reversal came after the progressive media and Biden magnified emotional pleas by sick patients who are working with immigration lawyers in Boston.

So-called “health tourism” is a growing problem in the United Kingdom where sick people can enroll themselves in British hospitals to receive taxpayer-funded care once they get past customs officials. Breitbart News reported in June:

Health tourism is believed to cost British taxpayers between £200 million and £2 billion every year. However, Dr Jackie Appleby, who proposed the motion, calls the millions — and potentially billions — of annual lost healthcare funding “peanuts in the grand scheme of things”.

Dr Duried Syad Ali, who opposed the motion [approving healthcare for foreigners], warned that “Accepting this motion is sending the wrong message to the world, inviting everyone to free health care,” while [opponent] Dr George Rae said: “The message coming from the BMA is… get on the plane, get on the boat because you will get treatment on the NHS for nothing.”

In California, Democrats have pushed for rules allowing illegal migrants to receive free taxpayer care. In June, Breitbart News reported:

The Democrat-dominated legislature of California has approved a plan to spend $213 billion in state and federal tax dollars on free healthcare for illegal immigrants.

The new plan would allow low-income illegals making about $17,000 a year between 19 and 25 years of age to join California’s Medicaid program, KHOU reported.

Democrats estimate that at least 90,000 illegal aliens would immediately qualify for the benefits at the cost of $98 million a year. The new plan also makes California the first U.S. state to give illegals free healthcare.

Immigration Numbers:

Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university. This total includes about 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees in business or health care, engineering or science, software, or statistics.

But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of about 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately 1 million H-1B workers and spouses — and about 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.

The government also prints out more than 1 million work permits for foreigners, it tolerates about 8 million illegal workers, and it does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.

This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it transfers wages to investors and ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.

This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment,  increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.

The cheap-labor economic strategy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.

The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the Heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, undermines suburbia, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.