Medical CareElliott Bustamante is an American citizen. He was born at University Medical Center in Tucson on March 14, 2007. Elliott has Down syndrome and was born with a heart defect. But Elliott made two mistakes. First, he was born to parents who are not citizens, although they are legal immigrants. Second, he had no insurance. Within two days of his birth, the hospital made plans to send Elliott to “his community of residence” in Mexico in spite of the fact that he is a US citizen and that his parents had been living in the US for more than a year before he was born and in spite of the fact that Elliott was in the neonatal intensive care unit and required heart surgery to survive.

The hospital told the parents they had no rights and Elliott was leaving with or without them. When Elliott was two weeks old, the hospital loaded him up and sent him to the airport to be transported to Mexico. A lawyer for the Mexican consulate called the police who called the hospital. The police ordered the hospital to return Elliott to the hospital. At the hearing, the hospital asked the judge to send Elliott to Mexico because he was trespassing by being in the hospital. Eventually the Arizona Medicaid system agreed to pay for Elliott’s care and suddenly the University Medical Center decided that it was best for Elliott to stay. As the lawyer from the consulate said, “The medical pretext for the transfer disappeared once they found the money.”

The problem, of course, is the American medical system. What happened to Elliott is not actually unusual. People who come here and do hard work are treated like garbage the second they get sick or injured. The mind boggles.

h/t – NY Times – Getting Tough: Deported in a Coma