"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 3/15/'06

3/15/'06 - The following article(s) were found in the media.
Several stories are provided ... with links to the original sources ... for your convenience:

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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/king/stories/031606.html

Immigration policy old but applicable

Published on: 03/16/06

In the course of almost every discussion about illegal immigration in the United States, you'll hear it: "We are a nation of immigrants."

Nearly as often, a comparison is drawn between the massive influx of Latino immigrants over the last few decades and the great wave of immigrants from Ireland in the decades following the potato famine of the 1840s. As St. Patrick's Day approaches — a time when 50 million Irish-Americans celebrate the patron saint of their ancestral land — now would be a good time to think about the validity of this comparison and whether it is predictive of what Latino immigrants will face in the decades to come.
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http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36078

Health Care Tricky for Legal Children of Illegal Parents
Proving poverty-level income may be impossible for some

BY ALYSSA ABKOWITZ
Published 03.15.06

click to enlarge

Courtesy Sister Margarita Martin

Roberto, a U.S. citizen, might have trouble getting health care because his parents are illegal immigrants.

Editor's note: Last names of illegal immigrants have been withheld to protect their identities.

Mario and Laura -- illegal Mexican immigrants who live in Athens -- learned last month that getting state medical care for their child, who is a U.S. citizen, might not be as easy as it once seemed.

Roberto, the couple's 1-year-old son, was born in the United States. He therefore qualifies for federal and state-funded health care for the poor; his family's monthly income totals $1,280 -- $937 below the Medicaid poverty level set by the state Department of Community Health.
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http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/business/14099778.htm

WANTED: A reliable work force
Farmers fear tighter supply of immigrant workers this year

y Elliott Minor
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on Wed, Mar. 15, 2006

OMEGA - Randy Scarbor was counting on the 15 immigrant workers who lived on his farm to harvest his 60-acre sweet-potato crop last fall, but they vanished just as the work got under way. He instead was forced to bring in some less-motivated substitutes for the backbreaking job.

"I wound up hiring some locals that weren't worth hauling to the field," he said. "It was the worst harvest labor in my life and I've been in the farming business 35 years. But we got it in."
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