The New York Im­mi­gra­tion Coali­tion (NY­IC), says that the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ pas­sage of the Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion Bill “scape­goats” Caribbean and oth­er im­mi­grants, while gut­ting Med­ic­aid and so­cial safe­ty pro­grammes.

Med­ic­aid is a US fed­er­al and state pro­gramme that pro­vides health care cov­er­age to qual­i­fied in­di­vid­u­als, based on in­come and as­sets.

NY­IC, an um­brel­la pol­i­cy and ad­vo­ca­cy or­ga­ni­za­tion that rep­re­sents over 200 im­mi­grant and refugee rights groups through­out New York,, said that the House Re­pub­li­cans nar­row­ly passed Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s rec­on­cil­i­a­tion bill last Thurs­day in a large­ly par­ty line vote of 215-214, ad­vanc­ing his do­mes­tic agen­da “at the ex­pense of work­ing fam­i­lies”

The leg­is­la­tion, which now heads to the US Sen­ate, will cut tax­es for the wealthy, con­sid­ered the biggest wealth trans­fer in US his­to­ry, while elim­i­nat­ing tax cred­its for work­ing fam­i­lies and slash­ing crit­i­cal pro­grams like Med­ic­aid, food as­sis­tance, ed­u­ca­tion and clean en­er­gy.

“This bill will su­per­charge an im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment agen­da that threat­ens con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions,” NY­IC pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Mu­rad Awawdeh, told the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC).

“The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion and Con­gres­sion­al Re­pub­li­cans keep prov­ing over and over again that their on­ly aim is to serve the wealthy, while gut­ting the so­cial safe­ty net pro­grams that serve low-in­come peo­ple, chil­dren and the el­der­ly.

“The ‘One Big Beau­ti­ful Bill’ turned out to be one big lemon for Amer­i­cans across the coun­try. If the Sen­ate pass­es this bill as is, it will take food off the ta­ble of vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, block­ing those same fam­i­lies from ac­cess­ing life-sav­ing pro­grams in­clud­ing re­sult­ing in up to 1.5 mil­lion New York­ers po­ten­tial­ly los­ing their health cov­er­age.”

Awawdeh said the bill pours about US$150 bil­lion in­to bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, the mil­i­tary and im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment “ex­pand­ing Trump’s cru­el de­ten­tion and de­por­ta­tion ma­chine.

“This bud­get en­dan­gers the health and well-be­ing of all our fam­i­lies and col­lec­tive fu­tures , whether we live in New York, Ohio or Texas,” he said, urg­ing the Sen­ate to “re­ject this dan­ger­ous plan and in­stead pass a bud­get that re­flects the val­ues of dig­ni­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty for all.”

Caribbean-Amer­i­can De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­woman Yvette D. Clarke has al­so strong­ly con­demned the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty’s pas­sage of Trump’s “Big Ug­ly Bill.”

“While the Amer­i­can peo­ple slept, Re­pub­li­cans passed the largest cut to health­care in our na­tion’s his­to­ry,” Clarke, the daugh­ter of Ja­maican im­mi­grants, told CMC.

“Their Big Ug­ly Bill is an at­tack on their own con­stituents, it is an at­tack on chil­dren, vet­er­ans, the dis­abled, and our most vul­ner­a­ble, and it is an at­tack on the less for­tu­nate, all in the name of serv­ing the ul­tra-rich.

“Amer­i­cans are not falling for Re­pub­li­can pro­pa­gan­da about so-called waste and fraud,” added the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the 9th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict in Brook­lyn, New York, who chairs the Con­gres­sion­al Black Cau­cus.

“This was a ruse to rip med­i­cine out of the hands of sick chil­dren to fund tax breaks for their ob­scene­ly wealthy pup­pet mas­ters. And the au­dac­i­ty of my col­leagues across the aisle to pre­tend oth­er­wise is noth­ing but an in­sult.”

Clarke said House De­moc­rats “stood in the breach and vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly against this vil­lain­ous scheme.

“As a re­sult, Amer­i­cans na­tion­wide are now wak­ing up in fear for their lives and liveli­hoods. We al­ready knew House Re­pub­li­cans are ut­ter­ly sub­servient to Pres­i­dent Trump, but to see so many of them de­fy their own prin­ci­ples and on-the-record po­si­tions just to avoid the wrath of one man is sim­ply shame­ful.

“At every step, they’ve aid­ed and abet­ted his ruth­less, care­less and in­hu­mane agen­da of harm against the Amer­i­can peo­ple, all while blow­ing out the deficit they pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly pre­tend to care about,” she added.

Pri­or to the bill’s pas­sage, House De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Ha­keem Jef­fries, who rep­re­sents the 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, en­com­pass­ing parts of Brook­lyn and Queens in New York, en­vis­aged that Re­pub­li­cans would pay for their votes in the mid-term elec­tions.

“I think that when the sto­ry is told of the 119th Con­gress, when the votes are ul­ti­mate­ly cast on that first Tues­day in No­vem­ber next year, that this day may very well turn out to be the day that House Re­pub­li­cans lost con­trol of the Unit­ed States,” he said.

In up­dat­ing New York­ers on the “harm­ful ef­fects” of sev­er­al health­care pro­vi­sions al­ready passed by the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, New York Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul warned that these pro­vi­sions col­lec­tive­ly amount to an an­nu­al loss of near­ly US$13.5 bil­lion for New York­ers and the health­care sec­tor.

She said the cuts would jeop­ar­dize health­care ac­cess for mil­lions of New York­ers, while im­per­illing the state’s hos­pi­tals and oth­er health­care providers.

US Sen­ate Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Charles “Chuck” Schumer said, “this is as cru­el and heart­less as it gets.

“Trump and House Re­pub­li­cans want to kick 1.5 mil­lion New York­ers off their health in­sur­ance and rip away US$13.5 bil­lion from New York’s hos­pi­tals and health­care econ­o­my, so they can have big­ger tax breaks for bil­lion­aires and cor­po­ra­tions.

“New House Re­pub­li­cans promised for months they would pro­tect Med­ic­aid, but now New York­ers know the truth: they nev­er in­tend­ed to keep that promise, and this con­firms it,” he said. —NEW YORK (CMC)

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Sto­ry by Nel­son A. King | CMC