[Vision2020] Idaho Court Rules Illegal Immigrants are Residents

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (June 17, 2008) Spokesman Review -

--------------------------------------------------

Court rules illegal immigrants are residents 
Idaho justices say county cannot deny medical aid

BOISE – The Idaho Supreme Court ruled Monday that an undocumented 
immigrant who was injured while living in Ada County is entitled to 
medical indigency assistance from the county.

A majority of the justices sided with Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical 
Center, which had sued the Ada County Board of Commissioners after it 
denied an application for medical indigency assistance from Javier Ortega 
Sandoval.

Sandoval had more than $187,000 in medical bills after he had a stroke 
while working in the Boise region.

The high court found that undocumented alien status doesn't affect the 
determination of whether someone is a resident. In other words, the 
concept of residency doesn't distinguish between citizens and those who 
entered the country illegally.

The ruling could have widespread impact. Some Idaho counties already 
provide emergency medical indigency assistance to illegal immigrants, but 
many do not, and hospitals cannot turn away emergency patients because of 
their inability to pay. That means hospitals may not be paid for the care.

Sandoval was working for Eagle Landscape Contractors on March 22, 2006, 
when he suffered a stroke, according to the ruling. He was taken to Saint 
Alphonsus and hospitalized nearly two months. 

Sandoval's son, Francisco Pacheco Sandoval, applied for medical indigency 
assistance from Ada County while his father was in the hospital.

The county turned down the request after learning Sandoval had come to 
Boise from Mexico in 2005 as an undocumented immigrant. County officials 
said he couldn't be a resident of Idaho because he was an illegal 
immigrant and therefore could be subject to deportation at any time.

In its 4-1 decision, the Supreme Court held that the county incorrectly 
interpreted Idaho's residency and medical indigency laws.

The medical indigency statute orders the county of residency of an 
indigent person to pay for medical services. The residency rule defines a 
resident as someone who has lived for 30 days or more in Idaho, excluding 
those who come for temporary purposes such as education or seasonal labor.

"Any attempt to import a person's immigration status into the analysis 
would be to place a nonexistent objective test into our law," Justice 
Roger Burdick wrote for the majority. "While Sandoval may have been 
subject to deportation proceedings, there is nothing in the record to 
indicate that this possibility created in him a subjective intent to 
return immediately to Mexico."

Justice Warren Jones was the dissenter, contending that Sandoval's 
purposes for residing in Idaho were indeed temporary.

Jones said Sandoval's testimony that he intended to return to Mexico, 
where his wife and child still lived, supported the board's finding that 
he was only here temporarily.

"The majority has in effect held that a person can be a resident of a 
place in which he has no legal right to be. That holding seems anomalous 
to me," Jones wrote. "To me, his status here was analogous to a fugitive 
from justice on the run from the law. ... Mr. Sandoval's tenure in Idaho 
could last only as long as he successfully evades the authorities."

--------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, MOscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college 
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)


---------------------------------------------
This message was sent by First Step Internet.
           http://www.fsr.com/