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Washington, DC-- Today Congressman David Wu (OR) voted with the majority in defeating the Undocumented Alien Emergency Medical Assistance Amendments of 2004 (H.R. 3722). Under this bill, hospitals would not receive critical federal reimbursements for the emergency care of undocumented immigrants unless they question their emergency patients to determine their citizenship, immigration, and financial status and obtain employer information. The bill was defeated by a vote of 331 to 88.
"The job of doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers is to take care of sick people, not to be immigration enforcement officers," said Congressman David Wu. "Requiring healthcare providers to gather this type of information, under the goal of protecting the community, has just the opposite effect. A community is not protected when individuals with infectious diseases are afraid to seek treatment for fear of deportation.
"America is a land of immigrants. This bill if enacted would have required medical personnel to determine who is and isn't an American citizen. The well being of thousand of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants would have been endangered, because medical personnel would be required to determine residency status based on arbitrary and archaic guidelines."
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