Quote:
Originally posted by Lebell
About 1 million to 2 million people illegally cross the Arizona border each year.
A study released last September by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition, a group of local and state government leaders from border communities, found that illegal immigrants racked up $190 million in unpaid bills at 77 border hospitals in 2000. Arizona border hospitals provided $31 million worth of uncompensated care.
The figure did not include Maricopa County, which estimates its costs at more than $50 million.
Kyl plans to introduce a bill next week that would reimburse all states for providing emergency medical care for illegal immigrants, said Matt Latimer, the senator's spokesman.
<snip>
Currently, Arizona spends about $150 on every student who is classified as an "English learner." The study says about $1,500 per student would fulfill the judge's ruling.
There are about 125,000 bilingual students in Arizona.
Besides the language provision, the judge also criticized overcrowded classrooms, and a lack of qualified teachers and teacher aides.
Some Republicans are skeptical of the cost estimates in the Democrats' report.
"We've got to get students learning English as soon as possible," said Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott and chairman of the Senate education committee.
"But I doubt that it costs another $171 million in the budget to do this."
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Thanks for the articles although I'm not quite sure of your points since you didn't type anything. Your first article doesn't support your contention that the hospitals are going bankrupt and the second one doesn't even address illegal immigrants.
Are you claiming that ~200 milliion dollars in unpaid debt is going to bankrupt the local hospitals? Before we can conclude illegal immigrants are the cause of their financial woes we should determine how much debt citizens aren't able to repay. As I stated, and the article appears to support, hospitals can't deny emergency treatment--that includes poor citizens as well as non-citizens.
Given that the schools provided a count of the bilingual students one can assume they know who they are. There is nothing preventing the INS from deporting them if they are illegal aliens. However, it's far more likely that they are
legal citizens who desire to learn
English (according to the article) as well as having a need to learn other material in their native language (something the article did not address). The citizens who are pure Spanish speakers certainly have just as much of a right to learn in Spanish as you have to learn in English--after all, they pay taxes too.