Baby Delivery, Citizenship and Tax Money

Sally Super is the head nurse in a hospital maternity ward five miles north of the Mexican border. Don’t try to convince her that Mexicans are coming to the United States illegally only for jobs.

She’s been delivering babies for 12 years in San Diego’s South Bay and has cared for many pregnant women from Mexico. “We know the big magnet to come across is the (U.S.) birth certificate,” she says. “All you have to do is ask them.”

She also sees the women getting in and out of cars with Baja license plates.

“We had a policeman from Tijuana who brought over his pregnant wife before Christmas because he wanted the baby to be delivered here for the birth certificate,” says Super, who manages the maternity floor at Sharp-Chula Vista Medical Center. “When we found she was not in active labor, we encouraged her to go back to her own physician.”

The policeman arrived too soon. If his wife had been in active labor, the hospital legally--and ethically--could not have turned her away because it would have been an emergency case. Taxpayers probably would have paid for the delivery through Medi-Cal. The baby automatically would have become a U.S. citizen and potentially eligible for all the benefits--welfare, health care, food stamps, a nutrition program. . . .

“We believe there’s an underground out there, where people are coached on how to get into the system,” Super says.

At nearby Scripps hospital, another maternity nurse explains how she can tell which women have entered the country to deliver a baby:

“The patient’s in labor still screaming and the father wants to know who he’s going to talk to about the birth certificate. . . . I had one lady a couple of weeks ago who said she came here because she wanted American medical care instead of Mexican care. She was honest; I respected that. . . .

“I’m not saying anything that’s not common knowledge.”

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It may be common knowledge in hospitals, but it’s not always politically correct to discuss in capitals.

Gov. Pete Wilson has been loudly denounced as an “immigrant basher” for suggesting that the U.S. Constitution be amended to deny automatic citizenship to children born of women who are in the country illegally. He also has been widely criticized for urging the federal government to stop requiring that states provide health care, education and other benefits for illegal immigrants.

“This is insane,” Wilson recently told ABC’s “20/20.” “We say you may not enter the country illegally. However, if you do, the following benefits are available to you. . . .

“You’re not going to let a person who needs emergency care go without it. That is an ethical response. However, it’s not fair because the patient should never have appeared on your doorstep. . . . If they go to the hospital and are on the edge of delivery, then you provide the necessary service. After which, it would seem to me, we ought to deport them.”

Isn’t that cruel? “Let me ask you something,” the governor replied. “Is it cruel to the California child who doesn’t get prenatal care because the (illegal) immigrant mother does? I mean, that’s what’s happened.”

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This kind of rhetoric understandably scares Latino legislators.

“I’m aware of discrimination,” says freshman Assemblyman Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk), who chairs a special legislative committee on immigration. “People say, ‘You’re too sensitive.’ But unless you’re in the skin, you can’t feel it. . . . I’m not against anybody being asked for documentation that proves they have a right to be here--as long as it’s done for every single person.”

Wilson, of course, is using illegal immigration as a political issue as he runs for reelection. But he also has a colossal budget problem partly caused by the burden of servicing illegal immigrants. So will the next governor unless the problem is corrected. That is why California politicians of all ideologies and ethnicities are supporting Wilson’s effort to prod Washington into paying for the services it mandates.

Wilson is demanding $2.3 billion from the federal government, but actually figures the state’s annual tab for servicing illegal immigrants and their children is $3.6 billion. It breaks down this way for illegal immigrants: $1.7 billion for education, $400 million for Medi-Cal and $400 million for imprisoning felons. Another $1.1 billion goes for education, health care and welfare for citizen children of illegal immigrants.

The state estimates that illegal immigrants account for 40%--roughly 100,000 a year--of all births paid by Medi-Cal.

Says Sally Super: “We can’t continue to do this. We don’t have enough money. We’ve seen abuse of the system over and over again. But that’s my opinion. It’s for the politicians to debate.”