Man. Just when you think the monkeys have stopped flinging poo, they're back at it again.
Hospitals would need to check the immigration status of uninsured patients under a new bill introduced by an Arizona lawmaker. Rep. Steve Smith’s (R) H.B. 2293 would require hospital staff to “reasonably confirm” patients’ status during check-in or treatment, and immediately report those who do not have the required papers to immigration officials.
I suppose this means that people who are actively dying would, you know, still have to go in search of their papers.
This is ridiculous. Hospitals are not in the business of enforcing immigration laws, nor should they be. Hospitals are in the business of saving lives. And Representative Smith conveniently overlooks the obvious fact that if this bill were to pass, undocumented immigrants simply would not go to the emergency room.
Even if they died as a result. For many Republican hard-liners, this would be a feature, not a bug.
I'm sorry, I cannot be that callous, not in the service of any law. Don't repeat the old canard to me about "what part of 'illegal' don't you understand?" If you agree with this law, that means to me that you have no concept of what it means to be a compassionate human being.
There are some laws that would richly deserve civil disobedience, Martin Luther King style. This would be one of them.
(Sock Puppet by Chambeshi; licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported)
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