MIGRANT ADVOCACY GROUPS URGE PATIENTS NOT TO SHARE CITIZENSHIP STATUS WITH HOSPITALS
In Far West Texas, the University Medical Center of El Paso, on Friday said that the executive order will extend not only to public hospitals, but to all healthcare providers identified by HHS.
“We have verified through the state that the executive order issued by Gov. Abbott regarding migrant care applies to a larger population of hospitals, public and private. The executive order specifically indicates that the term “hospitals” includes “acute care hospitals enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and any additional providers identified by the Health and Human Services Commission,” UMC officials said.
Donatti, of the ACLU, says migrants are being used as “scapegoats” for “political theater” during this contentious election year where immigration and the border are issues dividing the country.
“The governor will never miss an opportunity to scapegoat migrants,” said Donatti who called the order a “political bomb.”
Abbott’s “executive order requiring hospitals to report healthcare costs for visits from undocumented immigrants has absolutely nothing to do with recouping costs and everything to do with scapegoating immigrants and targeting border communities,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, tweeted Friday on X.
“This executive order is an extraordinary escalation of the tactics he will use to feed racist ideologies and only threatens to destabilize the economic prosperity of Texas by further disenfranchising a critical part of our community,” RAICES spokesperson Faisal Al-Juburi said.
