Speech #1040191056

Mr. Chairman. I rise today in opposition to the BRYANT of Tennessee amendment. which would require public medical facilities to provide the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] with Identifying information about illegal aliens who are over 18 years old that they have treated. This amendment is a threat to public health. It will discourage sick people from seeking treatment. and healthy people from seeking preventative care. When this issue was presented in California in the form of proposition 187. the medical community was overwhelmIngly opposed to it. on the grounds that it would place an undue burden on medical personnel. This amendment will undermine immigration enforcement by undercutting the existing enforcement priorities of the INS. The INS is already overburdened. If enforcement personnel cannot move quickly enough to deport persons who have been convicted of crimes. it makes little sense to expect them to divert resources to follow up on reports made by medical clinics. This amendment will be difficult and costly for medical facilities to Implement. Under this provision. hospitals and medical clinics will be forced to go through extensive documentation procedures for everyone they treat. Medical personnel are not immigration experts. This amendment places unnecessary burdens on already overworked medical facilities and their personnel. In addition. medical personnel are likely to be confused about immigration status and immigration documents. This confusion could lead to the harassment of U.S. citizens and legal residents. U.S. citizens often do not carry documents which prove their citizenship. Individuals who are mistaken for undocumented immigrants may be harassed when they seek medical care for themselves or their children. This will only contribute to a climate of fear which already negatively affects Americans whose appearance or speech leads others to mistake them as illegal aliens. Mr. Chairman. I would hope that this country could address its immigration concerns without resorting to chasing immigrants in the emergency room and burying this countrys medical personnel in paperwork. I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment.