Borders Kills Babies: The Karla Story

p emDecember 7, 2011/em/p p Sometimes I feel like,br / Poor people, when they get ill,br / We#39;re destined to die./p p span data-scayt_word="Muteado's" data-scaytid="1"Muteado#39;s/span wordsmdash;as family awaits more information, more ca$h, a miracle, to get cancer treatment for his 23-year-old niece Karlamdash;reflects the broken US medical system. It#39;s leaving undocumented folks without the right papers/span data-scayt_word="papeles" data-scaytid="2"papeles/span, poor folks without the right ca$h, the land full of folks without access to decent medical care, without the right to survive preventable diseases. From East Oakland to East Los Angeles, from New Jersey to Arizona, the broken system, blended with a heavy dose of racist span data-scayt_word="anti-im" data-scaytid="3"anti-im/span/migrant policies, are killing children, mothers, fathers and elders by the thousands, by denying care, visas or access to financial support based on immigration status./p p POOR Magazine is holding an emergency press conference at Highland Hospital on Friday to address this scary and heartbreaking injustice effecting mamas and babies./p p In New Jersey, a five year old girl who desperately needs a bone marrow transplant is being sentenced to death, because the US State Dept denied a visa for her 7-year old sister in El Salvador who is her only bone marrow match./p p Our POOR Magazine sister Karla, single mama to a 3-year old in East Oakland, said, ldquo;I want to stay alive for my son, he has no one to take care of him. She#39;s currently a patient at Highland hospital, facing death in the ward, because she needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. But due to her immigration status, she cannot qualify for the support subsidies available for bone cancer./p p All over the nation people are deported out of ICU instead of provided emergency surgeries, like the one Karla needs. span data-scayt_word="Po'lice" data-scaytid="4"Po#39;lice/span terror is brought to hospitals on the daily, as these big fancy privately funded span data-scayt_word="state-kkkorupte" data-scaytid="5"state-span data-scayt_word="kkkorupte" data-scaytid="285"kkkorupte/span/spand institutions profile folks out of getting the chance to survive./p p ldquo;These racist immigration policies and our the non-existent healthcare options kill poor children and mothers every day in the US,rdquo; said Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny, an advocate for poor families and children and co-director of POOR Magazine, a grassroots, non-profit arts and advocacy non-profit organization based in the Bay Area/p p Come help us speak out against this nonsense cruelty!nbsp; (If you can#39;t make the press conference but would like to donate to the fund for Karla#39;s care- a href="http://www.poormagazine.org/rev_donor"click here/a- indicate on your donation that it is for the Karla Fund/p p What: Emergency Press Conference to Save Livesbr / When: 12:00 noon Friday, December 9thbr / Where: in front of Highland Hospital- 1411 East 31st span data-scayt_word="st" data-scaytid="8"st/span ndash; Oakland, Ca 94602/p