Decisions, decisions
Should America really be forcing residents who are here legally to choose between healthcare and the fear of being deported?
If you had to choose between your health and staying in American which would you pick? This is a choice that could affect over 382,000 immigrants each year, if the Trump Administration’s latest federal regulation plans, announced in September, come to fruition.
That number does not include the millions of people who currently live in America who would be the first to be directly hurt by this. What this new proposed rule from the Trump Administration will do is to force all immigrants to make a choice between accepting public support and holding a green card — which of course is the key to allowing them to work and live here legally.
These benefits? Health care, food stamps and financial aid, just to name a couple. Though Trump’s slogan promises to “Make America Great Again,” some critics question whether that America includes millions of people struggling to support their families — including people who are tending America’s fields, cleaning America’s hotels, and working in America’s factories.
Say you’re an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and have been living here for a few years. Your family is not in the best place financially, but you just got your green card several months ago and now you can support the household through honest work.
Like many other immigrants, you accept any aid that the U.S. government is willing to offer. Now you hear on the news that the president wants to take away either your visa, which was a nightmare to get, or any aid that you’re eligible for, which could push you and your family into poverty.
Here comes the decision: Do you want to keep receiving the aid and possibly forfeit the visa that you waited so desperately long for, and be at risk for deportation every day? Or would you rather keep the visa and not be able to help your family’s ends meet?
There are millions of families who will go through these scenarios if this new plan gets approved, and for poorer people poverty only leads to more poverty. Can’t afford certain medicines now? Pay for a several thousand dollars in surgery next year.
Without the proper financial support, paying for things like this would be next to impossible. The flipside to this is going through life without a green card. People are unable to even send their children to school without a visa. This plan will immediately affect 20 million immigrant children, as if the circumstances weren’t grim enough.
Don’t even get started on the possibility of being hit with a minor criminal charge. If an immigrant gets profiled for no reason whatsoever and they just so happen to not have received a green card yet, they can expect a one-way trip to an immigration detention center and will more often than not result in deportation.
Take Charlie Hernandez, the American-born son of Puerto Rican immigrants. Hernandez, 20, is a part-time student at Palm Beach State College who works at Winn Dixie Supermarket in Lantana, Florida. He has American citizenship, but he knows many others who don’t.
“Honestly, this whole thing sounds ridiculous,” said Hernandez, dressed in his typical work uniform of a red shirt, black pants, and a black apron. “To say you’ll take away these green cards from people if they accept any kind of benefits seems to contradict itself. However, I can’t say that I’m surprised. We know how the president feels towards immigrants. To me, this sounds like an elaborate way of discouraging any more immigrants from coming to America,” Hernandez continued. “It’s like the government wants to back you in a corner that ultimately results in a lose-lose scenario.”
According to other reports and surveys, it seems that this proposed plan from the Trump Administration is making more Americans unhappy than it pleases. If America wants to hold true to being a melting pot for all people and cultures, we need leaders who are welcoming and inclusive towards all people and cultures.
- A pseudonym was used to protect this interviewee’s identity.
