From the transcript of the Connecticut Senate - June 5, 2007:
"SEN. HARRIS:
Thank you, Mr. President. This is a very
important evening and such an important topic. And before I begin, you're going
to be hearing from a lot of us around the Circle that had a piece in it. And
this has been, in many ways, a bipartisan effort, going forward through the
Committee system.
But there's one person at the outset I would
be remiss, as the hour grows late, if I don't thank, and that's our President
in the Circle, Don Williams. Senator Williams, a long time ago, knew and showed
that this is a priority for the people of the State of
Access to healthcare, wellness prevention, of
course, is a national issue, but we have it right here at home. Over 400,000 of
our fellow citizens, our family, friends, and neighbors, uninsured. That
doesn't include those that are under-insured or are paying tremendous amounts
for their insurance.
And even those who have coverage have
difficult at times getting access because we don't have the providers in place,
the dentists, the behavioral health specialists, the doctors, the healthcare
professionals, across the spectrum, to be able to provide service.
So I want to thank Senator Williams for
recognizing this and giving us, empowering the Committees to tackle this issue
that's so important.
And, as Senator Harp stated, I'd like to talk
about some of the waiver issues, because one of the key things that we're
trying to do with this bill is to take what we have, those existing programs,
SAGA, HUSKY A, and HUSKY B, and make sure that they're working to their
fullest.
So those are the sections that I'll begin to
describe. First, Section 2 of the bill, involving Medicaid coverage for
State-Administered General Assistance, what we call SAGA.
Low-income, childless adults are a group that
have tremendous difficulty getting access to healthcare. A lot of health issues
within this group in our state. And we currently have a state-administered
program, of course, SAGA.
And what we're doing in Section 2 is we're
actually asking the Department of Social Services something which we told them
to do in 2004, and that is to apply for a federal Medicaid waiver so that we
can turn our SAGA program from the purely state-administered program that gets
some dish supplements for the hospital care but not much supplemental, pure
state dollars to a federal Medicaid waiver program, in which we will get a
50/50 match.
So that's what we do here in this section.
And we also state in Section 2 that in the event this waiver is granted by the
federal government, we are going to increase the eligibility limits for SAGA,
which currently is 56% of federal poverty level, to 100% of federal poverty
level.
And just to give you some quick shape, that
would mean that at 100% federal poverty level, a childless adult, single,
earning $ 10,210 would apply. A family of two, the level would be $ 13,690. A
family of three, $ 17,170.
A family of four, $ 20,650, again, bringing
this important group into coverage and to being healthier in our State of
Section 3, and this would deal with our HUSKY
program, HUSKY A, and what we're going to be doing here is increasing from 150%
of the federal poverty level to 185% of the federal poverty level the annual
income limit for HUSKY A, for adult caretakers.
It brings it in line with the FPL that we use
for the children. And, again, to give shape, at 150% of FBL, a single person is
eligible at $ 15,315. We would increase that to $ 18,889.
Snapshot of a family of four, on that 150% of
federal poverty level, the current limit is $ 30,975. We would increase that to
185%, and it would be $ 38,203. So, again, we're going to be picking up more
and more of these individuals that we do not cover today.
Section 3 also requires of the DSS
Commissioner to advise individuals, when they apply for Medicaid coverage, that
if they don't have coverage under HUSKY A, that they have options under HUSKY
B.
From the debate on a bill to allow children of immigrants who attend Connecticut high schools for four years and then graduate to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities - transcript of the Connecticut Senate - June 1, 2007:
"SEN. HARRIS:
Very good, Sir. Mr. President, I move
acceptance of the Joint Committee's Standing Report and passage of the bill in
concurrence with the House.
THE CHAIR:
Acting on approval, Sir, would you like to
remark further?
SEN. HARRIS:
Yes, I would, Mr. President. Thank you very
much. Well, I would like to start off by saying and to try to focus my
colleagues here on the Circle and, of course, the citizens of
And I'd like to have everyone take a deep
breath and take a step back because within this nation, right now, there is a
very important and a very serious debate going on in Congress in our nation's
capital on immigration and on what we need to do to keep our borders safe, to
make sure that we allow people in this country as all of us and our ancestors
were allowed to pursue the American dream.
And that's a debate for
And the question here today is how we can
best help them incorporate themselves into our communities, into the State of
The children that we're talking about are
children of undocumented immigrants. Their parents came to this country, many
times fleeing political and economic oppression, just as our ancestors did, and
they brought these children to this great nation, to the State of
Some might have come here legally on a visa.
That visa expired, and now they have undocumented status. Others came here
originally undocumented, but it's important to note that it was the parents,
the adults that made the decision to come here, not the children.
The children are here not on their own volition.
And again, the question is what we can do to best help them help themselves to
incorporate them into this great quill that's
These kids have worked hard. They've
demonstrated academic success. And they should have the best opportunity
possible to continue on this path not only to pursue their dreams, but in doing
so by helping our communities, by helping our state, and, therefore, by helping
our nation.
These kids are already allowed to attend our
colleges. And what we're going to talk about here today is not whether they're
here, it's not whether they're in our schools, it's not whether they're in our
colleges.
But it's how to make sure that they can best
stay there and have the opportunity to gain that higher education, again, to be
incorporated into our communities to benefit themselves and all of us.
We're going to be talking about in-state
tuition versus out-of-state tuition, how to make them valuable members, to
become better educated, to become taxpayers, and in essence, whether they'll
have the opportunity to become cornerstones of the community or be forced to
the street corner.
And what we're doing here today is really not
anything that's radical, not anything that's new. As a matter of fact, ten other
states are doing exactly what we do here today.
As a matter of fact, the first day, seven
years ago plus, the State of Texas, it's interesting that our now President
Bush signed this bill into law, the exact bill that we're going to be working
on here today, in the State of Texas.
And since then, nine other states have
followed, California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York,
Oklahoma, Utah, Washington. These are red states. These are blue states. They
were Republicans, Democrats that saw that in these states, just like in
Connecticut, where we have a number of undocumented immigrants within our
communities already here, we needed to figure out a way, they did, and we do to
figure out a way how to best incorporate them into our communities.
There are 17 other state Legislatures now as
we speak that are considering this very type of law. And there are other states
around the nation who have come up with some other ways to be able to try to
incorporate these children who, again, were brought by others here, not on
their own volition, with their parents to incorporate them in.
And so what does this bill do, Mr. President?
First of all, it says that a person, any person in this state will qualify for
in-state tuition on the following factors.
One, they must reside in the state. Again,
the up to 200 kids that we're talking about are here. They reside in the state.
They must have attended school in this state. And I might add here it's
important because federal law actually requires us to educate undocumented
immigrants.
These kids are required to get a public
school education and, again, we're just trying to extend that requirement, that
ability to get that education to these children. They must have completed four
years of high school within the State of Connecticut.
And I might add here that of the ten other
states that have enacted this very statute, Connecticut would be the strictest.
Most require one to three years of high school within the state. We are
requiring four.
They must have graduated from high school. So
they've achieved, they're here, they've attended our schools, they've been in
high school for four years, they've demonstrated academic success and
graduated.
This is very important in particular with a
lot of our discussions around this Circle and this building on education.
We talk about academic failure, dropout
rates. These are examples of successes within our schools and within our
community what these kids have done in their lives despite where they came
from.
They have to have been accepted or they are
enrolled at a state institution of higher education. So they are already able
to get a higher education within our state schools.
And this is a very important fact too because
a lot of times, again, I think with this discussion getting mixed up into some
of the larger issues of immigration in this country.
One of the things that's raised, well,
they're going to be taking spots away from others that deserve it. They're sort
of stealing spots from our children that are here that are documents.
That's actually not true because they have
the spots. They have already been accepted to the school. They already are
enrolled within the schools.
And it's also important to note that we're
again just talking about up 200 of our children. There are approximately
111,000 students in our state schools right now as we speak, 111,000 we're
talking about, 200 out of 111,000. That's . 0018% if my phone calculator is
correct.
So these kids aren't just being given
something. As we could see by these factors, these kids have earned it. They've
shown their abilities, their willingness to work, their desire to succeed, and
their willingness to become a part of our community.
But this bill doesn't stop there, because we
understand that it's about incorporation, and it's important that these kids
become full citizens of this great nation of our State of Connecticut.
So this bill requires them to make out an
affidavit, and that affidavit will state that they are, either have applied
already for citizenship and are on that path or that they will do so as soon as
they are eligible.
So, again, they've shown success, they're
showing intent to stay, and the bill requires that this commitment be
demonstrated. We're here to try to help them lead their productive lives.
They are here. They are here. Again, not on
their own volition, but they're here, and we're trying to help them.
The fiscal impact of this bill is negligible.
We're talking about 200 students. They've already or will already have been admitted
to school, so you're talking about a differential between state tuition and
in-state tuition.
Insignificant within the state coffers, very
significant to these kids because some of them, many of them it might make or
break whether they pursue that higher education, whether they have the
opportunity to become a cornerstone of the opportunity, or whether they cannot
pursue that higher education and are forced to the street corner.
This is incredibly important for the State of
Connecticut. We have a lot of discussion in this building about issues with our
skilled work force. Here we have a pool of young people that have demonstrated
that they can be a part of that skilled work force.
We need to make sure that they can be
incorporated into that work force. And this becomes more and more important
when we look at the demographics of the State of Connecticut.
As we all know, we are aging tremendously. We
are now the eighth oldest state in the country. In the 2000 Census, 18% of our
individuals in Connecticut were age 60 or over. By 2030, that figure will be
close to one-third.
And what that means is what they call the
dependency ratio, the ratio of those that have aged and that are no longer in
the work force to those that are younger will be increasing in a negative way
for us, in a bad way.
And so all that we can do to pick up even a
few more individuals that can go out and be successful, be taxpayers, is very,
very important. And perhaps an example is worth the already too many words that
I probably put to this.
We had testimony, they had testimony, the
Higher Ed Committee, from many individuals that spoke about how this type of
statute is important and how what we're trying to do here made a difference in
their lives and then in our state's lives.
One actually sticks out, Raphael Aparitio. In
1969, he was age seven. His single mother came here undocumented from Peru.
Again, Raphael had no say in whether he was here or not. He was brought by his
mother.
But here he was afforded a great education in
the Stamford public schools. He ended up going to the University of Central
Florida, which he said was because he was able to get in-state tuition at the
University of Central Florida.
From that education, he pursued a masters. He
pursued an MBA at my law school alma mater of NYU. He worked for Cadbury
Schweps here in Connecticut, for IBM, for Coca-Cola.
He left, he started a private equity firm,
and is doing tremendously well for himself and for his family in Fairfield
County, living in Senator Duff's district in Darien.
He is a productive member of the community. He is a taxpayer. He is an example. Raphael is an example of what we're trying to do here today, afford these children who are brought here by others the best opportunity to live out the American dream and help us here in the State of Connecticut. I urge passage of this bill, Mr. President.
. . .SEN. HARRIS:
Thank you, Mr. President. For my second time
and final time on this bill, I too want to thank my colleagues for their
thoughtful debate.
This is a difficult issue, and it's something
that we're struggling with not only in the State of Connecticut, but actually
as a nation how to best accomplish this goal of incorporating these children
into our communities.
One of the things that was mentioned earlier
in the debate and I would agree with, it's interesting when this unfolds, is
the use of the term undocumented versus illegal, whether it's hardening or
softening.
And that's true, we each approach it from a
different end and we get up here and we describe it from our perspective. But I
think what we need to do is take a step back from that now and focus on really
what we're doing here today.
What we're doing here today is, again, trying
to incorporate some kids who through no fault of their own have ended up in our
state, in our communities, to try to help some kids who have been here, who are
here, and there is no cause here, and as Senator DeFronzo I think realistically
stated, there's not going to be mass deportations of millions and millions of
people from the United States.
So the question is how we deal with them.
They're here, they reside in our state, they've gone to our schools, they've
gone to four years of high schools, they've graduated from high school, they've
applied to college, they've demonstrated the acumen and the academic success to
be able to get into our schools here in the state, and the questions is, how do
we deal with them.
The difference between the two sides and this
debate is not as one of our colleagues stated, that one side believes in
citizenship and residency and the other doesn't. We all believe in that.
The question is, the means to get to
citizenship and residency. And what I believe is that this bill is a good path
towards citizenship and residency for these kids who have come to us through on
fault of their own, have demonstrated that they want to be a part of this great
state and this great country.
And this bill helps give them a hand to be
able to accomplish what you and I and our ancestors before us, generation after
generation have done and that is have an opportunity to fulfill the American
dream that's why I'm supporting this bill and I urge my colleagues to do the
same."