[StBernard] Illegal baby boom hits Big Easy

[Westley Annis]

Illegal baby boom hits Big Easy 
'Most violent city in America' hosts exploding alien population

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Posted: December 29, 2008
10:11 pm Eastern


By Chelsea Schilling
C 2008 WorldNetDaily 



New Orleans, La.
 

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, illegal aliens flocked to New
Orleans from other U.S. cities to find work - but three years after the
storm, the most violent city in America is festering with crime while
schools are overcrowded and immigrant births are ballooning. 

The New Orleans Economic Development office estimates the city's Hispanic
population has more than tripled since Hurricane Katrina devastated the
city. It has risen from 15,000, or 3.3 percent of pre-Katrina residents, to
50,000, or 15 percent of today's population. 

Tulane University and the University of California, Berkeley, released a
2006 study revealing that almost half of the city's construction labor force
was Hispanic. At least 54 percent were found to be illegal aliens, and 90
percent had lived elsewhere in the U.S. before migrating to New Orleans. 

As WND reported earlier, News reports indicate a flood of illegal aliens is
moving South from states such as Arizona and Oklahoma - where immigration
crackdowns have made life more difficult for them, and the slow housing
market has made jobs scarce. In New Orleans, families are multiplying faster
than hospitals and schools can accommodate them. 

Overcrowded hospitals and schools 

The Associated Press interviewed Kevin Work, a doctor who opened new
prenatal offices and hired bilingual employees so he could make a living
delivering New Orleans' Hispanic babies. 

He performs "thirty to forty deliveries a month," he said. 

Work told the AP he has helped illegal alien mothers give birth to at least
1,000 babies since the storm hit in August 2005. He said he provides payment
plans to help the families afford the births, or they are covered by
government programs such as Medicaid. 

In 2004, Emergency Medicaid cost taxpayers $1.7 million in Metro New
Orleans, according to the report. Now the government program covers five
times as many people, and the cost is more than 4.5 times what it used to be
- at $7.8 million. 

Likewise, schools are having trouble keeping up. 

Director Melinda Martinez of a Esperanza Charter School, a taxpayer-funded
English-immersion institution in New Orleans, told the AP her elementary
school doesn't ask about immigration status. 

In May, Esperanza Charter School teacher Judy Flores told Louisiana's WWLTV
she would never inquire about whether her students were legal. 

"If I knew, I wouldn't tell you," Flores said. "Whether you agree or
disagree, politics and that situation is outside of what our job is; our job
is to make sure our students learn and feel safe in our environments." 

A full 60 percent of Esperanza students are Latino, while 30 percent are
black and 10 percent are white. Each class has extensive waiting lists. 

Margie McHugh, co-director of immigration integration policy at the
Migration Policy Institute, told the Associated Press, "There's no place in
the world like New Orleans in terms of how rapid the population change has
been." 

Soaring crime statistics 

Meanwhile, the city's streets have reportedly become some of the most
dangerous places in the nation. A study conducted by Congressional Quarterly
recently labeled New Orleans the most violent city in the U.S. Likewise,
Foreign Policylisted it as third among its top five "murder capitals" of the
world - behind only Caracas, Venezuela and Cape Town, South Africa. 

Though many studies have not linked New Orleans' crime surge to any specific
cause, Foreign Policy attributes the city's high murder rate to "grinding
poverty, an inadequate school system, a prevalence of public housing and a
high incarceration rate." While New Orleans has always had high crime rates,
there were 19,000 reported crimes and 208 murders in 2007 - up from the 134
homicides reported just before the storm. According to FBI crime stats,
forcible rape and robberies were up substantially in 2007 as well.

Even during the city's legendary Mardi Gras celebration this year, four
people were murdered and a dozen were wounded by gunshots, according to EMS
Responder. Foreign Policy reports there has also been a surge of
drug-related violence since Hurricane Katrina. 

"Since the hurricane struck in 2005, drug dealers have been fighting over a
smaller group of users, leading to many killings," it states."On just one
four-block stretch of Josephine Street, in the city center, four people were
murdered in 2007 and 15 people shot, including a double homicide on
Christmas day. A precise murder rate is hard to pinpoint because the
population is swelling quickly, approaching its pre-Katrina numbers. Whether
you use New Orleans's own figures or the FBI's, however, the city remains
the most deadly in the United States, easily surpassing Detroit and
Baltimore with 46 and 45 murders per 100,000 people, respectively." 

The New Orleans Times-Picayune tracks and maps the city's homicides. The
2008 map shows too many murder victims to count - most of the victims were
shot to death. 

Jose Campos, 37, from El Salvador, works in New Orleans and regularly wires
money home. He told the Associated Press it is a rough place. 

"Life is hard here, harder than any place I've been in the U.S.," he said.
"It's a dangerous place, a bad place. But when you can find work, it's all
worth it."