Abuse by Officials at the Border

Being a legal immigrant to the United States is tough enough without a new hurdle erected by some state and federal officials to hinder the passage: squeezing newcomers to repay health and welfare benefits that they were legally eligible to receive.

Consider Martha Torres, a legal immigrant from Mexico, who upon her return from a visit to her native country was informed by California authorities that she must cancel her Medi-Cal coverage and make arrangements to reimburse the state for past benefits or risk losing her legal status. Multiply Torres’ story by thousands and you’ll have the full scope of a dirty drama taking place along the nation’s borders and in some U.S. consulates abroad.

Both the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department say they have advised immigration officers here and abroad that they have no legal authority to demand reimbursements in the vast majority of these cases, certainly when an immigrant committed no abuse. But the message has not trickled down. At entry points in California and elsewhere, some officers are clearly trying to intimidate immigrants to keep them from returning to the United States after trips abroad.

California officials vehemently deny wrongdoing, insisting they are simply encouraging “voluntary” repayments by immigrants who they say might have received benefits fraudulently, which has in fact been the case with a small number of short-term visitors. But legal immigrants and their children born in the United States are fully eligible for state and federal health programs. To deny them, beyond being illegal and inhumane, runs the risk of health problems in the wider community if infectious diseases break out among immigrants.

Pressured “voluntary” repayment of legal health services is an abuse of the law and a nearsighted blunder by officials who know better.