Immigrant health care use is bill’s target

03/29/2006

BY MARTIGA LOHN
Associated Press
March 28, 2006

The Minnesota House already voted to make police help federal immigration authorities find illegal immigrants. Now, a House lawmaker wants to make county employees turn in unauthorized aliens if they try to get subsidized health care.

The bill from Rep. Fran Bradley, R-Rochester, would expand the use of status checks for immigrants who apply for Medical Assistance, General Assistance Medical Care and MinnesotaCare. If someone came up as illegal, the county or state employee would have to report the person to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Bradley said he’s trying to challenge a “don’t tell” attitude among human services departments statewide. Under current policy, he said, human services employees can’t report an illegal immigrant unless they have that person’s written permission.

“My view would be that we all have a responsibility to uphold the law,” he told the House Health Policy and Finance Committee Tuesday.

Several of the panel’s Democrats were appalled.

Rep. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Columbia Heights, said the bill reminded her of a “police state.”

“We are going to have more individuals, misinformed or not, believing that the moment they come into an ER that they’re going to be taken away,” Rep. Neva Walker, DFL-Minneapolis.

Bradley said the state already doesn’t cover health care for illegal immigrants except in emergencies and for pregnancy, labor, delivery and postpartum care, and the bill wouldn’t change that. But the committee also was slated to consider a proposal from Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, that would cut off prenatal and postpartum care for unauthorized immigrants.

In Hennepin County, the state’s most populous, the proposal wouldn’t significantly affect human services workers because they usually don’t deal with illegal immigrants, who don’t qualify for most programs.

“They just don’t come in,” said Bill Brumfield, who oversees eligibility in the county’s human services and public health department.

But in rural Nobles County, the proposed change could erode the relationship between a population of Hispanic immigrants who don’t speak English and Nobles County Family Services, said director Lee McAllister.

He said many of those immigrants just wouldn’t come in to talk about their eligibility.

“That’s one of the safeties they have right now with us — they know they can come in here and we’re not required to report them. In fact, we’re not supposed to,” he said.

The House health panel, which Bradley heads, didn’t vote on his proposal but may wrap it into a larger committee bill.