Editor’s Note: The following article was written by editorial board member Salvador Sandoval MD, MPH.
Using a bold-faced lie President Trump and Vice President Vance blamed immigrants, particularly the undocumented, for the government shutdown now in effect throughout the country. Per VP Vance: “Democrats want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, to illegal aliens for their healthcare while Americans are struggling to pay their healthcare.”
The U.S. government shut down at midnight on Wednesday October 1 after Democrats refused to sign onto a GOP continuing resolution that would cause massive health care spending cuts. Health care premiums for the approximately 24 million Americans who pay for insurance through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will double in 2026, unless the current subsidies are extended by Congress, but the Republicans refuse. In addition, an estimated 4 million people would lose their coverage due to lack of affordability. In addition, $793 billion in cuts to Medicaid are projected under the continuing resolution, which the Democrats also want to reverse. These cuts in Medicaid are already forcing rural hospitals to close, along with other damage to our already frayed healthcare system. The cuts are all part of the Big Beautiful Bill HR1 passed earlier this year, which clearly laid out these funding cuts in health care, as well as food programs so as to fund massive deportation, ICE arrests, expanded detention centers, and benefit billionaires with lower taxation.
Trump is pressuring Democrats to give him the votes he needs because a total of 60 votes are needed to pass the resolution in the House of Representatives so that it can proceed to the Senate. As of the time of this writing he is 5 votes short.
The hypocrisy of the lies and manipulation are scandalous. Undocumented immigrants are prevented from receiving Medicaid in the first place. And strict measures by the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security prevent their access in the first place.
Just like the lie that immigrant Haitians were eating pet cats and dogs, Trump and Vance are using the same lie that Democrats allowed criminals and rapists to flood through the Southern border to take American jobs and benefits, and even to vote. Trump and Vance continue to lie because it has worked for them up until now. And he is pressuring Democrats, because that has worked too for him in the past. However, many Americans are starting to wake up to reality as reflected in polls and other ways regarding the cruelty and unfairness of ICE raids and forced disappearances by masked men. Many are starting to see that HR1 and actions by the President are hurting them too.
In reality, the victims who include legal immigrants, banned from Medicaid with HR 1’s passage, are the millions of Americans U.S born or not, who will lose their health care coverage and food programs.
Government should be funded to serve those who built and contribute to this country, and this includes immigrants—not the billionaires. In the meantime, continuing to resist, forging bonds of solidarity, and obligating our elected officials to stand up for us and not to bow to tyrants.
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