Mexican consulates offer healthcare help

Then the Mexican government worked with the Treasury Department to make sure the U.S. banking system remained open to immigrants.

Now Mexican consulates in the U.S. are taking on an even more formidable challenge: the healthcare system.

A program called Ventanillas de Salud, or Health Windows, aims to provide Mexican immigrants with basic health information, cholesterol checks and other preventive tests. It also makes referrals to U.S. hospitals, health centers and government programs where patients can get care without fear of being turned over to immigration authorities.

"Being undocumented, we thought we didn't have the right to certain things," said Rosalba Hernandez, 26, who came to the U.S. two years ago and lives in Panorama City. "We were scared to ask for information."

Hernandez, a housecleaner, and her boyfriend, a gardener, said they rarely go to the doctor because of treatment costs and fear of deportation. But after a visit to the Mexican Consulate last week to get her consular ID card, Hernandez now knows she can get affordable insurance and free access to some government health services.

Launched in 2003 in Los Angeles and San Diego, the Ventanillas program is currently operating in 11 cities, including Chicago and Houston, and the goal is to have a version in all 47 Mexican consulates around the country.

"Health-related issues are a very important absent piece of information," said Ruben Beltran, Mexican consul general in Los Angeles. "We're filling the blanks

But critics say that illegal immigrants are already an unchecked drain on the public healthcare system and that such programs will only allow them to reap even more benefits.

"It facilitates people remaining in the country illegally," said Ira Mehlman, spokesman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "Clearly it is a policy of the Mexican government

Mehlman said Los Angeles County, especially, should not be partnering with the consulate to provide health services. "The county is broke, they are cutting back on services, they are closing emergency rooms, yet they are dreaming up new ways to provide benefits to illegal aliens," he said. "It's lunacy."