In Colorado, the local Mexican consul has agreed to take care of some of its medical thieves who are ripping off the taxpayer. Sort of. But not really.
Hundreds of Mexican illegal immigrants are in Colorado not just for work but also for free medical care they say they can’t get back home. Now, Mexican officials have agreed to bring some home and help them find doctors there.
But many of these illegal immigrants — including Eloina Meza, a single mother of a disabled boy featured in the Nov. 13 Denver Post — see little incentive to return to a country where comparable opportunities don’t exist.
Juan Marcos Gutierrez, Mexico’s consul general in Denver, confirmed a new deal negotiated with Dr. Patricia Gabow, chief of the Denver Health and Hospital Authority.
Under the agreement, Denver health workers who provide kidney dialysis to illegal immigrants are guiding those who are willing to Mexico’s consulate in Denver.
The immigrants are told they can receive free travel home and help finding appropriate health care — though they get no assurance it will be free. [Ill Mexican nationals go home, Denver Post 11/20/06]
The "agreement" is not exactly ironclad, one notices, so nothing substantive will happen. This story is a transparent publicity ploy from the Mexicans attempting to show that they are not complete parasites. If Mexican medical indigents leave — six are reportedly heading home for kidney dialysis — it will likely be for a free trip home for the holidays. What convenient timing.
Meza probably "is entitled" to stay in the country with her son under immigration-law provisions that grant legal status to people in the country illegally for more than 10 years who also can prove an exceptional humanitarian need, Deasy said, "but the enforcement priorities of the Department of Homeland Security do not appear to include enforcement activities that will benefit a deserving individual." ["I am here illegally. They wouldn’t take me in." Denver Post 11/13/06]
There’s no mention of the cost of the government providing taxpayer-subsidized healthcare to foreigners, but Denver records over one year show 1500 emergency-room patients have no Social Security numbers. The individual cases mentioned — e.g. a boy born massively deformed who required over a dozen surgeries — are total money pits.
The home of many of these people is Mexico, Latin America’s wealthiest nation, which could well afford to care for them. Mexico only dumps its medical indigents on the US because Washington allows it.
