U.S. Committed to Border Defense: For South Korea

The border between North and South Korea is about 160 Miles long. It is also heavily defended by about 28,600 American troops, walls, guns, searchlights, etc.

“The Mexico – United States border … runs from San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Baja California, in the west to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and Brownsville, Texas, in the east, and traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from major urban areas to inhospitable deserts. From the Gulf of Mexico it follows the course of the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) to the border crossing at El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; westward from that binational conurbation it crosses vast tracts of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Desert, the Colorado River Delta, westward to the binational conurbation of San Diego and Tijuana before reaching the Pacific Ocean.

The border’s total length is 3,169 km (1,969 miles), according to figures given by the International Boundary and Water Commission.[1] It is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with about 250 million people crossings every year. (Source)

North Korea has about 238 United States soldiers per mile along its border, plus the South Korean army.

“Currently, the U.S. Border Patrol employs over 20,200 agents (as of the end of fiscal year 2009), who are specifically responsible for patrolling the 6,000 miles of Mexican and Canadian international land borders and 2,000 miles of coastal waters surrounding the Florida Peninsula and the island of Puerto Rico. Agents are assigned primarily to the Mexico–United States border, where they are assigned to control drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Patrols on horseback have made a comeback since smugglers have been pushed into the more remote mountainous regions, which are hard to cover with modern tracking strategies.” (Source)

For those of you keeping score at home, that is about 2.5 INS Agents (soldiers) per mile. South Korea has 238 American soldiers per mile to defend its borders. We get 2.5 American soldiers per mile to defend ours. But wait, there’s more! Obama has just committed an additional 1200 National Guard troops to border protection. This raises the number to 2.65 soldiers per mile. If only Arizona had the the same lobbyists as South Korea!

Read The Rest At Orwell's Dreams

New Arizona Law Rattles Immigrant Community

PHOENIX, Ariz.--A new Arizona law aimed at denying public benefits to undocumented immigrants could hurt U.S. citizens as well.

Pastors, community activists and non-profit directors in Arizona are warning that the bill which took effect last Tuesday could have a chilling effect on immigrant communities and their U.S born children in need of health care, food and housing services.

“This is a terrible change,” said Alfredo Gutiérrez, a retired senator and editor of La Frontera Times. Since undocumented migrants don’t qualify for most state benefits this is a redundancy, and it’s children who would pay the price, he said.

HB 2008 requires state, cities and any government employee in Arizona to report to immigration authorities any undocumented immigrants who request a public benefit. Government workers could face up to four months in jail if they fail to make a report. The law also gives taxpayers the right to sue a state or city agency if they believe the law is not enforced properly.

The new regulations were included as part of the budget negotiations during a special session in the state.

“They were very sneaky on the way they put it in there,” said Lydia Guzman, president of the statewide pro-immigrant coalition Somos America.

The law has the support of Republicans, including Gov. Jan Brewer and Sen. Russell Pearce. Pearce has been at the forefront of legislative efforts to related to undocumented migrants.

Arizona is considered a testing ground for immigration laws for the rest of the nation. Over the past five, years Republican have enacted legislation that ranges from banning scholarships for undocumented students to denying bail to undocumented people charged with a crime.

On 2004, Arizona voters approved Proposition 200 aimed at limiting access to public benefits by undocumented immigrants. The impact of the initiative was reduced to five programs after scrutiny by Attorney General Terry Goddard.

Despite it’s limitations, Prop. 200 had an extended effect on immigrant families who were afraid of requesting emergency health care services and pre-natal care for pregnant women, according to immigrant advocates.

They fear this new bill would add to the ongoing anti-imigrant climate.

While the law doesn’t eliminate eligibility for services it could require a caseworker to report on an undocumented parent if they find out about their status in a casual conversation.

“This is just unconstitutional, what they’re doing is penalizing children who are entitled to the services, but they’re going to take it away because they’re the children of immigrants,” said Luis Ibarra, director of Friendly House a non-profit agency that services Latinos and immigrants in Phoenix.

The Department of Economic Security (DES) did not respond to queries about which services will be impacted by the law. Nor did it clarify whether or not undocumented parents could safely request a benefit for their U.S. children without being reported to immigration authorities.

“I’m mostly worried about the U.S. children of fathers that have been deported. Many mothers are having to request food stamps because they don’t have another choice," said Magdalena Schwartz, pastor of the Disciples of the Kingdom Free Methodist Church in Mesa. "They’re not asking for themselves, they’re asking for their children.”

The state law won’t impact eligibility for federal benefits or essential services like emergency aid or police, some attorneys argue. But there’s growing concern that many state workers would report someone out of fear of loosing their job.

Guzman, president of Somos America, has been receiving phone calls from concerned immigrants but also social workers.

“A social worker told me: We can’t tell people not to apply if their children will starve to death. But on the other hand, what am I going to do, it’s not like I can find another job easily?,’” she said.

Another concern is that many of these workers might report on refugees or domestic violence victims who have a legit claim to a benefit for lack of understanding of the immigration laws in this country, she added.

Despite the alarm, the law’s implementation might be short-lived.

This coming Tuesday the Arizona Supreme Court will rule on the future of the law due to a lawsuit brought by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns.

The association that represents 90 cities and towns didn’t sue about the content of the law but the way it was created. They said it violated the state constitution because it was part of a state budget package, not a stand-alone bill. And it went beyond the scope of the special session called by the governor intended to address budgetary concerns.

On Tuesday, governor Brewer called the challenge “outrageous and shocking” at a time when Arizona is facing a budget deficit, according to a report from the Associated Press. Brewer's office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

If the current lawsuit is unsuccessful, “MALDEF [the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund] is prepared to go forward to challenge the law” said attorney Daniel Ortega, who would act as local council and fought against Prop. 200.

In the meantime, Ortega said “we’re going to have to tell people, ‘If you’re undocumented don’t go an ask for services.”

Source: New American Media

Will PETA Protest Itself?

When British entrepreneur Simon Buckhaven invented an electric gizmo that kills lobsters and crabs “more humanely” than the traditional method of dispatching the creatures—in a pot of boiling water—no one was surprised to see People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) jump on the bandwagon. But the “CrustaStun,” which looks a bit like a lobster photocopier, may be one contraption the animal liberation nuts wish they’d never heard of.

Last weekend, PETA arranged for a CrustaStun to be sent to a Tucson fundraiser for Child & Family Resources. The charity has prepared its “Lobster Landing” dinners the old fashioned way for years, but PETA hoped to usher in a new era of electrocution—presumably so they could protest the event next year with “Don’t Taze Me” posters and a comically demonic “Electric Chair Louie” mascot.

PETA’s crustacean triumph didn’t exactly go as planned. Here’s how Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Chronicle Herald described the eventual dispatching of 1,800 lobsters:

The animal rights group PETA bought two of the lobster devices and paid for Mr. Buckhaven and his wife to fly to the Arizona event last Saturday to demonstrate the technology.

Unfortunately, the courier service lost the two machines and the animal rights people had to look the other way as volunteers killed hundreds of lobster in boiling water for hungry supporters of the resource centre.

We’re left to wonder why, once the boiling started, the PETA activists didn’t make their point by tossing a few toasters and hair dryers in the water. Or inviting a “euthanasia technician” from PETA headquarters to make a deliciously efficient job of it.

Next year, we recommend lethal injection. With drawn butter.

Source: PETA Kills Animals

‘Toughest Sheriff’ Targeted by Feds

Phoenix, Ariz. is now the kidnapping capital of America, and ranks second worldwide only behind Mexico City. Phoenix—the nation’s fifth largest city—is located in Maricopa County, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been trying to combat an increasing crime wave associated with illegal immigration.

Of all the illegal aliens incarcerated in Maricopa County jails, 70 percent were arrested for felony crimes, including murder, drug trafficking, assault, kidnapping, DUI, robbery, forgery, and human smuggling. The violence at certain points on the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated to such alarming levels that John Gibler, author of Mexico Unconquered, stated in a March 25 interview that we are facing a “bloody, very real war over territory.”

Narco-traffickers run rampant in Sinaloa, their gunmen execute rival drug dealers at will, while over 50 Mexican journalists have been slain since 2000. El Manana editor Ramon Cantu says with dire certainty, “All of our journalists who cover sensitive subjects, especially drug trafficking, have been the targets of threats and violence.”

Considering the “war” that is spilling over into this country, a variety of governmental forces are actually attempting to stop the law enforcement activities of Sheriff Joe Arpaio instead of assisting in his efforts. As it stands now, four separate entities are investigating and/or trying to thwart him: Eric Holder and the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and a House Judiciary Committee led by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).

The Bush administration played it soft on the illegal immigration issue. But at least they didn’t interfere with Arpaio trying to uphold the law, especially when his men were doing ICE’s job for them.

On October 14, Rebecca Larsen of The Washington Times wrote about their 287(g) program. “This law permits local law enforcement agencies to perform immigration functions traditionally reserved for the federal government— such as holding illegal immigrants when arrested.”

But in an article by Andrea Christina Nill of the L.A. Progressive on October 7, “Arpaio believes the White House is going out of its way to single him out and curb his immigration-policing powers for political reasons.”

To reinforce his claims, the sheriff cites a meeting between the mayor of Phoenix and Holder that led to an investigation being opened two months later. Secondly, he notes the intervention of former Arizona governor—and now DHS head—Janet Napolitano.

“She has her mission. She works for the president. She has to report to the White House and take orders from them.” In addition, ACORN is launching petition drives against Arpaio, while the ACLU has filed lawsuits for “racial profiling.”

In the face of this adversity, Arpaio has stuck to his guns. “I don’t report to governors, I report to the people,” he told Jim Meyers of Newsmax on October 21. “The feds are not the boss of me.”

That’s why Arpaio has continued his street sweeps, raiding work sites that hire illegals, and arresting “coyotes” who smuggle human cargo into America. Drug dealers and gang-bangers also remain firmly in his crosshairs. And if ICE won’t accept the criminals delivered to them, Arpaio says assuredly, “I’ll have to transport them to the border myself.”

Believe these words, because Arpaio hasn’t backed down in the past. He’s the man who established a “tent city” to handle more prisoners, made male prisoners wear pink underwear, cut out salt and pepper from their meals, and placed men and women on chain gangs.

Barack Obama’s henchmen don’t scare him in the least. “I’m not worried about a thing. I’m a fighter.”

Could a more sinister element be lurking behind the vendetta against Arpaio, similar to how a private security firm rolled into Hardin, Mont. and tried to eliminate the local sheriff’s office? Could such moves be part of a larger, nationwide plan?

As Devey Kidd wrote for News With Views on Dec. 12, 2002, “The sheriff of your county is the highest elected official and has more power than most people realize. Your local sheriff has the power to tell dragoons from various federal alphabet soup agencies that they will not come into their county and attempt to enforce unconstitutional ‘laws’. Your local sheriff is there to protect your rights, not the actions of an out-of-control government.”

Are DHS, ICE, DOJ, and the Obama White House all plotting to handcuff Sheriff Arpaio’s ability to enforce the law as step one in a larger attempt to nullify local officials, only to have their authority replaced by Uncle Sam’s cronies? If this is a precedent, Arpaio has thus far defied their heavy-handed actions by continuing to parade arrested illegals before television cameras. His example needs to be followed by more of his colleagues before its too late.

To Hell With The Scum In Washington, Arpaio Has Laws To Enforce

SURPRISE, Ariz. — An Arizona sheriff known for cracking down on people who are in the country illegally launched a crime and immigration sweep in northwestern metro Phoenix on Friday, a half day after officials in Washington limited his powers to make federal immigration arrests.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose sweeps have led to allegations of racial profiling, said the rebuff from Washington won't stop him. He said he can still arrest immigrants under a state smuggling law and a federal law that gives all local police agencies more limited power to detain suspected illegal immigrants.

"It doesn't bother me, because we are going to do the same thing," said Arpaio, whose deputies had arrested 16 people by Friday evening on unspecified charges. "I am the elected sheriff. I don't take orders from the federal government."

The officers were participating in a federal program that grants a limited number of local police departments special powers to make immigration arrests and speed up deportation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stripped Arpaio of his power to let 100 deputies make federal immigration arrests, but renewed another agreement that allows 60 jails officers to determine the immigration status of people in jail.

The sheriff's sweeps in some heavily Latino areas of metro Phoenix have drawn criticism that Arpaio's deputies racially profile people. Arpaio said people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes and that it was only afterward that deputies found many of them were illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Arpaio's office over allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

"He is doing this to thumb his nose at the Obama administration," said Lydia Guzman, president of the Hispanic civil rights group Somos America.

The sweeps have discouraged some Hispanics who have witnessed or been victims of crime to refuse to call Arpaio's deputies, for fear of mistreatment, Guzman said.

Observers who are part of Guzman's group fanned out across the area of the sweeps with video cameras to record exchanges between deputies and motorists.

Arpaio said volunteers will use cameras owned by his agency to video-record deputies so viewers can see for themselves that they weren't doing anything wrong. Arpaio responded angrily to a question during a news conference about the costs of the cameras, saying they were paid through seizures in drug cases. "Dope peddlers bought the cameras," Arpaio said.

A dozen anti-Arpaio protesters yelled throughout the news conference. At one point, they chanted: "Order equals K-K-K — here's what Arpaio has to say."

Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and an advocate of expanding local immigration efforts, said Arpaio's office — like every other local police agency — can detain people suspected of immigration violations for a day or two until federal authorities come to pick them up.

In the past, Arpaio could have held such immigrants for longer than two days and conducted investigations of smuggling rings, Kobach said.

"It's really a slight narrowing, but it's not much," said Kobach, who worked as an immigration law adviser to then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft from 2001-2003.

Dan Pochoda, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing people who filed a lawsuit over the sweeps, said Arpaio still can't pull over motorists solely because they are suspected of being illegal immigrants.

"He can't do it under the terms he is claiming. He has indicated that he can stop people without the suspicion, based on what they look like, what they sound like," Pochoda said.

Arpaio said the Bush administration had no complaints about his use of the special federal powers, but all that has changed with the Obama administration.

"What's changed?" Arpaio asked. "Politics has changed, because they don't like us going on the streets to catch illegals."

This round of sweep, Arpaio's 12th, is set to end late Saturday.

Source: Google News

PUTTING ILLEGAL ALIENS AHEAD OF RETURNING VETERANS

Happy Independence Day.

Would the signers of the Declaration of Independence have thought it principled for the majority of U.S. politicians today to refuse to give even returning U.S. military veterans preference over illegal aliens for jobs?

Hardly.

IMAGINE GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE

You see, strangely enough, our Founders believed in something called a national community. (They CREATED the national community!) Government was to be BY and OF the members of that national community. But it also was to be FOR the members. EVERYTHING about our current immigration policies ignores any special treatment or consideration for the members of our own community.

These immigration policies serve the interests of the few against the many -- they serve the powerful and rich against the weak and poor.

PUTTING ILLEGAL ALIENS AHEAD OF RETURNING VETERANS

The high-immigration lobbies and their allies in Congress, in the White House and in most state legislatures have taken an extremely ANTI-4TH-OF-JULY approach to our current jobs depression. Official unemployment has now hit 9.5%. But all parts of the federal government and all but a few states have refused to require E-Verify to keep a dwindling number of U.S. jobs available for our fellow citizens.

Thus, I read today about the very sad lot of so many returning National Guardsmen who are returning to an economy that has no job for them. Yet, more than 8 million illegal aliens currently hold U.S. jobs. Wouldn't it make sense to require all employers to use E-Verify to open up those jobs for our returning military -- and so many others of our fellow citizens trying to survive economically?

Only 12 state legislatures have required E-Verify at least to some extent to protect jobs for veterans and other Americans. In 38 states, though, the illegal aliens with jobs have priority.

CORE PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE DECLARATION MAKE THIS OUR HOLIDAY

Perhaps no holiday is more fitted to those of us in the immigration-reduction movement than the 4th of July. For what was the signing of the Declaration of Independence about if not the defining of a new national community and the insistence that the government exists primarily to protect and provide for the quality of life of the members of that community?

There is a tendency to celebrate the individual liberty made possible by our form of government without recognizing the role of community which implies rights and responsibilities toward each other.

Government was said to exist based on the consent of the governed. The inalienable right of individuals to choose their own government was based on theories of natural rights, especially as propounded by the British philospher John Locke.

Our Founders had long believed in natural rights. But in the Declaration of Independence, they had reached a consensus that natural rights were inextricably tied to nationhood. We were a separate people from all other peoples. Unless individuals were part of a national community, there was seen to be little chance that they could achieve their natural rights. For all kinds of geographic, economic and cultural reasons, it was no longer practicable for the colonists to be a true part of the British national community. We had to have our own community if we were to have our individual rights.

Historian Ralph Ketcham concluded that the principles of the Founders were that:

. . . the legitimate powers of government were derived from the people, that government existed to promote the happiness and safety of the people . . .

Happiness.

What kind of happiness do our 15 million unemployed Americans derive from government policies that continue to import some 138,000 foreign workers a month (not counting illegal aliens)?

HIGH-IMMIGRATION ADVOCATES NOT SO SURE ABOUT NATIONAL COMMUNITY

But I have come to see that many high-immigration advocates do not really believe in the national community that the Signers of 1776 created.

We at NumbersUSA earnestly do believe in it. We would never put illegal aliens ahead of returning veterans, for example. We see radical immigration numbers and slovenly enforcement of immigration laws as a grave threat to the members of our national community.

We disagree with the majority of politicians, with the President, with the former President, and with most newspaper editorial boards that huge numbers of citizens of OTHER national communities have just as much right to the jobs, the infrastructure and the land in the United States as do those who are citizens of THIS national community.

Don't interpret me too narrowly. I believe -- as did the Signers of 1776 and John Locke -- in the national communities of peoples across the world. It is in their own national communities that they have the possibilities of fulfillment of their natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is in their ability to define the membership of their community and to maintain governments of, by and for those communities that any real improvements in quality of life are possible around the world. That is the global spirit of July 4, 1776.

Open borders and second-class status for members of our own community is not the Spirit of 1776.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Source: NumbersUSA

Frederick Douglass on Cheap Labor

Below is an article by Frederick Douglass from the August 17, 1871 issue of his newspaper, "The New National Era." America had its cheap labor lobby back in 1871, and it has one today in the form of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ImmigrationWorks, and Bill Gates himself testifying before Congress for more H-1B visas. Frederick Douglass attacked the cheap-labor lobby's "fair-seeming phrases" immediately in the first sentence. We all know that today's cheap labor lobby has similar "fair-seeming phrases" that I will not repeat here since they are all over the mainstream media. The issues that deeply concerned Frederick Douglass in 1871 are very relevant today.

Note 1: In 1996, the Center for Immigration Studies published an excellent historical review of the thoughts of African-Americans on immigration. Click here to view it.
_____________________________________________________________

Cheap Labor
by Frederick Douglass

How vast and bottomless is the abyss of meanness, cruelty, and crime sometimes concealed under fair-seeming phrases. Take the one we have made the caption of this article as an illustration. Ostensibly the demand for cheap labor is made in the interest of improvement and general civilization. It tells of increased wealth and of marvellous transformations of the old and the worthless into the new and valuable. It speaks of increased travelling facilities and larger commercial relations; of long lines of railway graded, and meandering canals constructed; of splendid cities built, and flourishing towns multiplied; of rich mines developed, and useful metals made abundant; of capacious ships on every sea abroad, and of amply cultivated fields at home; in a word, it speaks of national prosperity, greatness, and happiness. Alas! however, this is but the outside of the cup and the platter--the beautiful marble without, with its dead men's bones within.

Cheap Labor, is a phrase that has no cheering music for the masses. Those who demand it, and seek to acquire it, have but little sympathy with common humanity. It is the cry of the few against the many. When we inquire who are the men that are continually vociferating for cheap labor, we find not the poor, the simple, and the lowly; not the class who dig and toil for their daily bread; not the landless, feeble, and defenseless portion of society, but the rich and powerful, the crafty and scheming, those who live by the sweat of other men's faces, and who have no intention of cheapening labor by adding themselves to the laboring forces of society. It is the deceitful cry of the fortunate against the unfortunate, of the idle against the industrious, of the taper-fingered dandy against the hard-handed working man. Labor is a noble word, and expresses a noble idea. Cheap labor, too, seems harmless enough, sounds well to hear, and looks well upon paper.

But what does it mean? Who does it bless or benefit? The answer is already more than indicated. A moment's thought will show that cheap labor in the mouths of those who seek it, means not cheap labor, but the opposite. It means not cheap labor, but dear labor. Not abundant labor, but scarce labor; not more work, but more workmen. It means that condition of things in which the laborers shall be so largely in excess of the work needed to be done, that the capitalist shall be able to command all the laborers he wants, at prices only enough to keep the laborer above the point of starvation. It means ease and luxury to the rich, wretchedness and misery to the poor.

The former slave owners of the South want cheap labor; they want it from Germany and from Ireland; they want it from China and Japan; they want it from anywhere in the world, but from Africa. They want to be independent of their former slaves, and bring their noses to the grindstone. They are not alone in this want, nor is their want a new one. The African slave trade with all its train of horrors, was instituted and carried on to supply the opulent landholding inhabitants of this country with cheap labor; and the same lust for gain, the same love of ease, and loathing of labor, which originated that infernal traffic, discloses itself in the modern cry for cheap labor and the fair-seeming schemes for supplying the demand. So rapidly does one evil succeed another, and so closely does the succeeding evil resemble the one destroyed, that only a very comprehensive view can afford a basis of faith in the possibility of reform, and a recognition of the fact of human progress.

In our paper last week we took occasion to say a word of the ``Coolie Trade'' now prosecuted in the interest of cheap labor, and as kindred in character and results to the African slave trade of other days. Our reading on the subject since that writing, shows the points of resemblance between the two schemes to be more striking than they at that time appeared, and the coolie trade but little behind its predecessor in every species of baseness and cruelty.

It is now three centuries since the first recognition of the slave trade by our authority in England. It was during the reign of the great Queen Elizabeth, in 1562, and it is remarkable that the great princess, while sustaining the scheme in furtherance of cheap labor, professed great abhorrence of bringing away the Africans without their ``consent.'' According to her the Negroes came (to use a soft phrase of the American Colonization Society) to be colonized with ``their own consent.'' The same scrupulous regard for the rights of volition appears in the contracts and schemes by which Coolies are transported from India, China, and other parts of the globe. What all these pretensions were worth in regard to the African slave-trader, the history of that traffic as told by Thomas Clarkson and by a thousand witnesses, has abundantly shown.

The trade of the slave-trader across the sea was a track of blood. Her wake drew into it a procession of hungry sharks to feast upon human flesh, diseased, dead, and dying. The slaves were literally stowed between decks, without regard to health, comfort, or decency. The great thought of captains, owners, consignees, and others, was to make the most money they could in the shortest possible time. Human nature is the same now as then. The Coolie Trade is giving us examples of this unchanged character. The rights of a Coolie in California, in Peru, in Jamaica, in Trinidad, and on board the vessels bearing them to these countries, are scarcely more guarded than were those of the Negro slaves brought to our shores a century ago. The sufferings of these people while in transit are almost as heart-rending as any that attended the African slave trade. For the manner of procuring Coolies, for the inhumanity to which they are subjected, and of all that appertains to one feature of this new effort to supply certain parts of the world with cheap labor, we cannot do better than to refer our readers to the quiet and evidently truthful statement in another column of one of the Coolies rescued from the ship Dolores Ugarte, on board which ship six hundred Coolies perished by fire, deserted and left to their fate by captain and crew.

Source: Numbers USA

Citizenship for sale: TMC offering maternity packages to Mexican women, raising questions on birthright

By Mariana Alvarado

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A Tucson hospital's health-care package promises affluent Mexican women the chance to have their babies in posh surroundings with access to the latest medical equipment.

But the marketing materials leave out a key draw in the arrangement: U.S. citizenship for the newborn.

Tucson Medical Center's "birth package" gives an official nod to a generations-old practice of wealthy Mexican women coming to U.S. hospitals to give birth. Mexican families do the same thing at all local hospitals, but TMC is the only one actively recruiting their business.

The practice is legal, but offensive to some advocates of tougher U.S. immigration standards.

"What it really amounts to," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, "is buying U.S. citizenship."

"This is different from any other kind of medical treatment," said Krikorian, whose Washington, D.C.-based think tank studies the impact of immigration on the United States. "If you come for cancer treatment … there's no consequence for the United States. You pay your money, you go home."

The Mexican consul general in Tucson said parents naturally want to give their children every advantage and securing U.S. citizenship is something a small percentage of Mexican families can afford.

"This is not a new phenomena," said Juan Manuel Calderón Jaimes, who says he's seen the practice for almost 30 years. "Many families of means in Sonora send their wives here to give birth because they have the resources to pay for the services."

Expectant mothers can either schedule a Caesarean section or arrive a few weeks before their due dates to give birth at TMC. It is one of 13 packages aimed at Mexican families, some of which include a stay at a local resort and shopping excursion.

TMC's maternity package costs $2,300 for a vaginal birth with a two-day stay and $4,600 for a Caesarean section and a four-day stay, assuming no complications. That includes exams for the newborn and a massage for the new mother. There is a $500 surcharge per additional child.

"These are families with a lot of money, and some (women) arrive on private jets and are picked up by an ambulance and brought here," said Shawn Page, TMC's administrator of international services and relations. "These are families with a lot of clout."

U.S. citizenship for their children brings even more clout: the opportunity — and right — to live, work and study in the United States. Because their parents do not earn the same right, many children of such arrangements grow up in Mexico and come here as adults for school and work.

The United States recognizes the jus soli doctrine, which grants citizenship to those born on U.S. soil. Like the U.S., Mexico honors the jus sanguinis doctrine, which grants citizenship to a child based on the citizenship of the parents regardless of where the birth occurs. So a child of Mexican parents born at TMC would have dual nationality.

Array of packages

Aside from the maternity package, TMC offers 12 packages for international patients, including bone density tests, mammograms and urology procedures.

Many pair pampering with medical care.

Earlier this month, TMC launched the Mujer Sana (Healthy Woman) Health Tour Package, targeted to women 50 or older. It includes six exams at the hospital and three days and two nights at a Tucson-area resort and a shopping spree.

The hospital partnered with the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau, and the program is marketed through the visitors bureau in Hermosillo, Sonora.

"TMC has generated a package dedicated exclusively to women, something Mexico hasn't done," said Miguel Angel Partida Ruíz, director of the bureau's Sonora office.

He said the patients can bring their families and turn the trip into a mini-vacation. The MTCVB has a contract with Super Shuttle to provide transportation.

Rocío Pérez Medina, coordinator of "Vamos a Tucson" — the campaign to promote Tucson in Sonora — said the new TMC package is appealing.

Although a fixed price has not been set, the visitors bureau estimates the cost will be between $500 and $600, which includes the $150 exams at TMC.

Earlier this month, Pérez Medina reviewed the results of the exams she took in order to sample the care patients would receive.

"It is very good, very thorough," she said. The package can be purchased by one person or for groups of up to 10.

Aside from treating international patients and the local Spanish-speaking community, Page said, the goal of TMC's international program is to reach out to U.S. citizens living in Canada or Mexico to come to Tucson for medical treatment.

Health niches on both sides

South of the border, private hospitals are applying for international certification and partnering with U.S. insurance providers to cover medical costs.

Officials with the recently created Medical Tourism Cluster in Sonora say the cross-border patient phenomena illustrates the different niches.

"It's good that Mexican patients go to Arizona," said Héctor Xavier Martínez, head of the Sonora Medical Tourism Cluster. "Hopefully, we can create agreements between private hospitals on both sides of the border."

Next month, hospital officials will visit Tucson to promote Sonoran hospitals and the lower cost of medical procedures.

Among the hospitals that will participate are Hospital Cima Hermosillo, Grupo Médico San José, Clínica del Noroeste and Grupo Médico de Hermosillo.

Tourism representatives and bus and airline companies will also participate in the Tucson visit.

The cluster is also promoting the idea of building small clinics in tourist destinations such as Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point.

Source: Arizona Daily Star