Nevada high in foreign births
By Steve Timko
stimko@rgj.com November 8, 2010
About one out of every four children born in Nevada recently were to mothers who were not U.S. citizens, the second-highest rate in the nation, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday.

The data, collected as part of the Census Bureau's ongoing American Community Survey, did not distinguish between noncitizen mothers who were here legally or illegally.
The American Community Survey sends questionnaires to households in every state every year to get a demographic snapshot. This data was from the 2008 ACS and asks participants if they had children in the prior 12 months. The estimates said 26.3 percent of the children born in Nevada were to mothers who were not U.S. citizens. California ranked first at 29.1 percent.
The figures did not surprise Mary Ann Robinson, coordinator of the Washoe County School District's English Language Learner department.
The school district has 11,243 students in its English Language Learner program, and 75 percent of them were born in the United States, Robinson said.
To make sure it can communicate with all of the parents of its students it translates letters, it is required to send home into several languages.
Many schools have bilingual clerks and parent facilitators who are bilingual. There are also bilingual aides in classrooms, and if needed, the school can hire translators so school staff can talk with parents, Robinson said.
"We do everything we can to communicate with parents to make sure that they know where their children are academically and what support we're providing for them," Robinson said.
Nevada Hospital Association president and chief executive officer Bill Welch said that historically, noncitizens are less likely to have health insurance. That puts financial strain on Nevada's hospitals because when they show up to give birth, the hospitals will deliver the babies even if payment is not guaranteed, Welch said.
In the past 18 months four Nevada hospitals, all based in Southern Nevada, closed their obstetrics services.
"We have other hospitals evaluating their OB services at this time based on the number of uninsured and underinsured patients presenting to deliver babies," Welch said.
Nineteen out of 33 Nevada hospitals are losing money -- the average Silver State hospital had an operating loss of 2.71 percent -- and obstetrics is almost always a money loser, he said.
"OB already tends to be a loss leader for most hospitals," Welch said. "What is collected in payments for services is typically less than what it us to operate that department."
Hospitals have cut costs where they can and shifted the costs of some money-losing services into areas where other patients can make up the difference, he said. The last option is to reduce or cut services.
Bob Fulkerson, executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said it is important not to scapegoat noncitizens for problems.
"This is a prime example of why Congress needs to pass immigration reform, so that noncitizens can become citizens," Fulkerson said. "It shows the failure to act nationally is having a profound effect at the community level."
Noncitizens are also taxpayers, Fulkerson said.
"They pay their sales taxes when they buy everything else here," he said. "They pay property tax through their landlord or through the homes they own. They are paying into the system. Let's not blame them for national immigration problems."
They also boost the economy, he said.
"Without a robust immigrant population, Nevada's economy would be much, much worse, and that's borne out by studies from the Wall Street Journal and universities through out the country," Fulkerson said. "Immigrants, both citizens and noncitizens, have an overwhelmingly positive effect on our economy."
Nevada high in foreign births | rgj.com | The Reno Gazette-Journal
Comprehensive Immigration Reform is nothing more than chain migration. Needed so non-citizens can become citizens as if they will have less babies if the become citizens. They will still be low wage earners, pay very little in taxes, if any and eligible for welfare benefits via the taxpayers. Then the families they will be able to bring into the country. Elderly parents who never paid into the system added to the system. Fulkersons solution is to make a big problem bigger. What part of this article do Fulkerson not understand.
