President Obama’s original health care reform proposal was bad enough, but now the Democratic party is bowing to racist rhetoric and immigrant bashing by creating more barriers to access for immigrant families, even the “legal” ones with the Senate Finance Committee’s draft legislation.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be on a press call regarding health care reform and immigrants. What I heard gave me disturbing background on how undocumented immigrants were thrown out of the debate by fellow Latinos from the get because of politics as usual and how now Obama is showing himself all too willing to sacrifice immigrants (browned as Latino) as pawns in negotiations, instead of as humans.

On the call, put together by America’s Voice, was Frank Sherry Executive Director of A.V., Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill), The Rev. Luis Cortés of Esperanza USA, Eric Rodriguez, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, and Kevin Applebee, Director of Migration Policy for the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops.

Frank Sherry prefaced the call by expressing his dismay over how Democrats in Congress are caving into and buying into anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Luis Cortés of Esperanza USA said that he feels that the Congress is losing its moral barometer with both parties running to show who can be the hardest against the weak, in this case immigrants. According to Rev. Cortés, if the U.S. public’s opposition to denying immigrant access to health care, isn’t enough to worry Congress, they should worry about punishment from a higher, namely god since Congress’s loss of moral barometer is punishable according the scriptures ( I couldn’t make this stuff up).

Eric Rodriguez of the National Council of la Raza said that there was no surprise that immigration was being used as a wedge issue in the struggle for health care reform. Echoing their release post the Wilson outburst, the focus of NCLR was the need for access for legal immigrants (as opposed to all immigrants regardless of status). Under the proposal, documented immigrants are barred for the first five years from receiving Medicaid.
Additionally, Rodriguez stated that the various proposals appear to propose a 2 year waiting period for affordability credits for documented immigrants.

Congressman Luis Gutierrez, who touted himself as the first Latino supporter of Obama, gave some interesting but disturbing background on how the undocumented were excluded from Obama’s health care reform. He stated that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had said early on that they would support a bill that excluded undocumented immigrants in order to get something passed and that they knew that they had to swallow the bitter pill of layers of verification of status. Hmm I wonder if this is why I don’t call myself Hispanic or feel like the Hispanic label doesn’t represent the interests of my community. Anyway, confessions aside, Gutierrez raised some important points about what would happen to undocumented workers who already have health care insurance through their employers and undocumented parents of citizen children. Gutierrez also expressed his disappointment with President Obama, saying that the President he voted for and supported said he was going to help the undocumented come out of the shadows and now that same president is denying the undocumented access to health care. Gutierrez asked why does hatred always have to win? why does the politics of bigotry have to win? (Answer: it doesn’t help when Latinos er Hispanics throw their own under the bus in the name of political expediency). What wouldn’t be denied to the undocumented immigrants was emergency care, which by Gutierrez’s own admission only stabilizes the sick until they eventually die.

What was glaringly clear fro yesterday’s telephone press conference was that Obama, Congress and D.C. based organizations are taking a piecemeal approach to everything. To quote Frank Sherry from America’s Voice:

“What do you do about those who aren’t covered under health care reform. Pass comprehensive immigration reform!”

Pero then what do we do about those who won’t be covered by comprehensive immigration reform? Those that slowly but surely already being rounded up via 287(g) programs and deported? Piece by piece we watch our community get sold out.