Illegal Immigration Strains State’s Health Care
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Illegal Immigration Strains State’s Health Care
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Illegal immigration is putting immeasurable strain on all Americans, especially those closest to the border.
From The Epoch Times. Some hospitals in Southern California are struggling with an influx of illegal immigrants amid the border crisis, while American patients are enduring longer wait times for doctor appointments due to a nursing shortage in the state, according to two health care professionals.
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A health care worker at a hospital in Southern California, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job, told The Epoch Times that “the entire health care system is just being bombarded” by a steady stream of illegal migrants in recent years.
Some illegal immigrants get hurt crossing the desert or injured climbing the border wall, while others are injured in accidents, especially when too many occupants are packed into one vehicle, the health care worker said.
Severely injured illegal immigrants are often rescued by helicopter and flown to trauma centers in Southern California, she said. …
With a typical helicopter rescue costing about $30,000, without factoring in the costs of medication and medical staff at the hospitals, “who pays for that?” she asked. …
Total U.S. apprehensions of illegal and inadmissible aliens in fiscal year 2023—from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023—were 3.2 million. In fiscal year 2022, it was more than 2.7 million. Counting “known gotaways”—those whom Border Patrol agents record but don’t catch—more than 8 million illegal immigrants have entered the country in less than three years under the Biden administration.
Language Barrier
Illegal immigrant patients are usually accompanied by sponsors who advocate for them, but language barriers still pose a problem for doctors and other hospital staff, the health care worker said.
“Not everybody can speak the languages of these patients,” she said. “That’s another burden.”
Hospitals need to hire either translators or staff who can speak all the languages of the patients crossing the border from dozens of different countries, she said. …
Patients often have their doctors’ appointments “pushed back” to accommodate the medical needs of illegal immigrants, the health care worker said.
“They get in a lot quicker than our Veterans Affairs [VA] and retired military patients. They get in a lot faster, and they get the best care—probably better care than the VA patients do,” she said.
Typically, VA patients usually wait months to be seen by a specialist, while illegal immigrants who just crossed the border are seen the same week, she said. …
ICE Detention Facility
An experienced doctor in Southern California, who spoke to The Epoch Times on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the influx of illegal immigrants to San Diego and Imperial counties is “just outrageous” and that the burden of care on hospitals is “overwhelming.” …
Amid a statewide shortage of primary care doctors and nurses, three nurse practitioners whom he trained at his practice were recruited with better pay and benefits to work at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in El Centro, California, he said.
“It’s a huge place, and so there are lots of resources being used at that facility. A lot of nurse practitioners are being pulled from us,” he said. “It’s really hard to get doctors out in our area, so we have a lot of nurse practitioners who help physicians in the community because they can see patients and prescribe medications.” …
“Border cities are having to deal with the influx without having the resources. When you take from the resources that are currently available, you’re depriving the community of those resources. The unintended result is it backs up the system.”
Disease and Injuries
Tuberculosis (TB) patients, for example, can tie up hospital beds for months, depending on the severity of infection, the doctor said. …
Aside from TB and measles, sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis, measles, and AIDS are on the rise, the doctor said. …
Illegal immigrants also need treatment for injuries from lacerations from razor wire, the doctor said.
“They cut their hands and legs when they’re jumping the fence. They usually put a jacket or something over the razor wire, but sometimes, it comes through,” he said.
Because so many medical professionals and resources have been tapped to treat illegal immigrants, American patients, including military veterans, have been neglected, the doctor confirmed.
“It takes forever for these VA patients to get seen at the clinic. It takes months to get an appointment. There is very limited care for the veterans out here,” he said. “The VA program has been neglected as a result of having to put more money into funding for the ICE detention centers.”
Toll on Border Patrol Agents
The doctor, who also treats Border Patrol agents, said that agents’ job-related injuries “have gone through the roof.” He has also noticed an increase in the number of agents with mental health problems related to stress and anxiety.
Many agents say they’ve been taken out of the field to act as illegal immigrant processing clerks rather than doing what they were trained to do: patrol the border, he said. …
The agents also witness the aftermath of heinous crimes, including the abuse and rape of women and girls at the hands of Mexican drug cartels. …
Suicides among agents have also increased. In 2022, 14 agents took their own lives, more than in any other year since U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began tracking these deaths. …
Between 2007 and 2022, CBP lost 149 people to suicide, which is “among the highest rates compared to other law enforcement agencies.”
Costs of Illegal Immigration
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a nonprofit organization that pushes for changes in immigration policy, the cost of health care for illegal immigrants in California through Medi-Cal was approximately $4.8 billion per year in 2022.
FAIR estimated the total federal medical costs for illegal immigration at more than $23.1 billion in 2022 and pegged the costs to cover unpaid hospital bills for uninsured illegal migrants at about $8.2 billion.
The total cost of illegal immigration in California was about $22.8 billion annually for education, health care, law enforcement, criminal justice system costs, welfare, and other expenditures. By comparison, the annual cost of illegal immigration in Texas in 2022 was $9.9 billion. In California, the taxpayer cost per illegal immigrant in 2023 was $7,074, compared to $4,466 in Texas.
The FAIR study estimates that the gross cost of illegal immigration in the United States is $183 billion annually, an increase of more than 35.7 percent since 2017. The cost incurred for each illegal immigrant, including their U.S.-born children, has increased to $8,776 annually. …
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Lord bless America especially all the border states who are taking care of illegal immigrants. For their compassion and these acts of mercy. Blessed are the merciful You promised. Now we ask that you stop those who bring in these immigrants for their own gain. Break the organization up, remove the strongman at the source. Expose their false promises to the poor and helpless and let truth of the condition of immigrants be known at the source countries.
Amen. I pray in agreement with you.