Your daily dose of civil rights and related news
The part of this story about video-taping errant traffic cops is not civil rights related. But the part about private citizen videos serving as a check against abusive cops is.
Nothing says sensible immigration policy more than deporting a 31 year old legal immigrant for a theft charge she got probation for ... as a teenager.
The Washington Post accuses the Virginia GOP of trying to scare voters away from the polls.
Texas is set to go forward with the Medellin execution, despite pleas from President Bush and the World Court to hold off.
New Mexico becomes the first state to adopt a Navajo textbook. I say: if you come to America, better learn to speak the language Anglos!
Now hospitals are getting in on the deportation game.
Is reduced illegal immigration a function of enforcement or the economy?
The railroading of suspected illegal immigrants continues to get attention.
Civil rights groups are nervous about new federal profiling that will hit Arab and Muslim Americans hard.
The DoD admits it targeted a man with accusations of spying for Israel strictly because he was an observant Jew.
The Confederate flag battles are moving to private property.
New Jersey adds religion-based jokes to the list of things that can constitute work-place harassment (here is the ruling).
Will the Obama campaign fracture or renew the Black/Jewish alliance?
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Now hospitals are getting in on the deportation game.
The link should be http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us/03deport.html
As for the substantive point, I am doubtful about requiring hospitals to provide more than emergency care for illegal immigrants. Americans with long term disabilities have a claim on Medicare; illegal immigrants don't. They are outside of our system. The analogy offered by the Guatemalan doctor -- “You go to my home, you fall on my stairs and then you sue me. I am responsible” -- falls apart because even in America's relatively plaintiff-friendly tort system, if you enter the home illegally as a trespasser, the owner has very little responsibility. An illegal immigrant is a trespasser, owed only the duty of non-malice (i.e. that no one actively harm him), not of beneficence (i.e. that someone keep him safe and protected).
Frankly, I suspect that a single-payer system would make the law even more unfriendly to illegal immigrants in need of health care. Every dollar that went to an illegal immigrant would more clearly be perceived as a dollar that didn't go toward a citizen's care. Our health care system's diffuse rationing obscures such connections; if all the health care money comes from a single, taxpayer-funded pot, the lost dollar will be very apparent.
The only parts of the article that I found really appalling were the attempts by hospitals to dodge their obligations to citizens and legal residents, and this:
Mr. Banks was stunned. He filed a notice of appeal and asked for a stay of the court’s order while the appeal was pending. The judge asked the hospital to file a response by 10 a.m. on July 10 before he ruled on the stay.
Four and a half hours before that response was due, shortly before daybreak on July 10, 2003, an ambulance picked up Mr. Jiménez at the hospital and drove him to the St. Lucie County airport, where an air ambulance waited to transport him back to Guatemala. Mr. Gaspar was not apprised.
“We went to see him at the hospital, and his bed was empty,” he said.
The hospital’s lawyer declined to comment on why the hospital did not wait for the judge to rule on the stay.
I hope that judge held the hospital in contempt.
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