Immigrants Facing Deportation by US Hospitals

It’s no secret that there are serious problems with both the US health-care system and US immigration policy. Less obvious, though, are the ways in which those problems can overlap. The US government requires hospitals to care for all in need of lifesaving medical treatment – including foreign immigrants, but does not cover all costs for that care. Some hospitals, eager to rid themselves of the burden of providing long-term care to uninsured immigrants, get involved in deportation procedures by transferring ailing immigrants to medical facilities in home countries, however deficient those facilities might be. Critics call it “international patient dumping,” and journalist Deborah Sontag details the case of Luis Alberto Jiménez, struck by a drunk driver and then deported to Guatemala by a private Florida hospital. Jiménez’s deportation was later ruled illegal by a Florida appeals court, and he remains in Guatemala. Meanwhile, the US still flounders over a complex and overextended health-care system, along with immigrants’ place in society. – YaleGlobal