US Halloween costume dehumanizes both legal and illegal immgrants

During our last Halloween in the US, this costume was very popular. I think it blurs the lines even further between illegal and legal, the “illegal alien” even has a “green card”. The immigrant is criminalized by the orange jumpsuit worn by inmates in US prisons. Complete the costume by the extra-terrestrial mask. The ad jokingly states "He didn't just cross a border, he crossed a galaxy". Much to my disappointment this costume was even available in several of my favourite stores.

Thankfully no trick or treater turned up on my doorstep wearing this costume. I would have been so upset. This is just more confirmation that, even as a legal immigrant, I was unwelcome in the US and would never belong there.

Alien is a word used by the U.S. government to describe a foreign-born person who is not a US citizen. People who enter the United States legally are also known as “aliens”, and a green card (which is no longer green) is an “Alien Registration Card”.

Webster’s definition of the word “alien” includes the U.S. governments interpretation, but goes on to include other, darker, meanings for the word such as “a non-terrestrial being” “strange”, “hostile”, “not of planet earth”. Encyclopaedia Britannica states “in early times the tendency was to look upon the alien as an enemy and to treat him as a criminal or an outlaw”.

Legal or illegal, I think the word “alien” is very offensive and dehumanizing. I was an immigrant in the US. I was from Canada, not another planet. The last time I renewed my green card, the agent asked another agent to “send the next alien in”. I have a name, please use it.

Life for immigrants, legal or illegal, is getting very tough in the US.

My US citizen husband is an immigrant to Canada. He has not had to put up with any of this nonsense, but has been made to feel very welcome.

Legal immigrants lose on health care in US

Samuel Goncalves, 23, has lung cancer, and was placed on a stripped-down health plan by the state in 2009 only because he is a "legal immigrant" and not "American". 

Copayments for treatment were unaffordable under the stripped-down plan.

The Massachusetts health care insurance reform law, enacted in 2006, mandates that nearly every resident of Massachusetts obtain a state-government-regulated minimum level of healthcare insurance coverage. Key provisions of the law were the subsidies that were available to those with low income.

In 2009 state lawmakers dropped at least 26,000 Legal immigrants from the program in order to save $130 million to balance the budget. Legal immigrants pay taxes the same as US citizens do, and should have the same rights and benefits as US citizens. Many Legal immigrants will become US citizens. Dropping legal immigrants from this program illustrates how marginalized they are becoming in the US.

This week the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the “state’s exclusion of thousands of legal immigrants from subsidized health coverage probably violates protections in the state constitution”. Legal immigrants may get health care back, but the outcome is not clear, and the state is still fighting against restoring health care to Legal immigrants.

Most disturbing are some of the comments. Many refer to the fact they are “native born” Americans. Several said “legal immigrants should go back to where they came from”.

I truly believe more and more Americans want Legal immigrants to go back to where they came from, and those who mention they are “native born” Americans do not believe that “naturalized” Americans are as American as they are.

The following comments are shocking, and prove that if you are not born in the USA you will never belong.

Valentine78 wrote:
I was born in the country as was my husband. I am 50 - my husband is 57. We have three children. I am presently unemployed and my COBRA payment is $1,557.00/MONTH. Please spare me the sob stories about immigrants (legal or illegal)whining about how high their co-pays are.

Fidd wrote:
Because he's an immigrant we have to pick up the tab. Sorry about his condition but there are natural born Americans also paying high co-payments. Evidently he's is also on the dole collecting other Massachusetts benefits for immigrants. Massacusetts can't get anything straight, except corruption.

doggman wrote:
Don't wait for "your turn" on my dime. Get out!

j33dow wrote:
Leave OUR country and go back to you native land. We owe you NOTHING!!!

alsharp456 wrote:
not trying to be a racist but these immigrants are really starting to get on my last nerve,and the americans who hire and falsify documents to save millions rather then pay an american a living wage,we need to not let anymore immigrants over here we have enough there are no more jobs sorry go home and stop having unprotected sex and bringing babies in to poverty

BillSaysVoteThemOutNow wrote:
"These are *LEGAL* immigrants."So what. They are just more leeches who come here and never, or for a short-term, paid into the system. They just continue to bleed the system for "real Americans" so our health care suffers and our retirement age has to be raised so they can "follow their dream".To hell with them.

Sadly, I came to believe that it did not matter that I was a "legal" immigrant, and later a "naturalized" American - there were many who viewed me as "not really American" and voiced that I didn't really belong in the US.

UPDATE ON SAMUEL

Samuel's medical coverage was dropped only because he was a legal immigrant, as as a direct result, he died.