Medical Deferments: Working to Stop the Cruelty

Activists and advocates continue to put pressure on the Trump Administration to fully restore the practice of granting medical deferments to non-citizens who are receiving life-saving medical treatment in the US. 

On Friday, September 5, the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston, represented by the ACLU and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, filed a federal complaint challenging the Administration’s actions to curtail the program.  The suit argues that the Administration’s move is motivated by racial animus, in violation of the 5th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform will hold its (rescheduled) hearing on the matter on Wednesday, September 11, from 11 a.m. to 12 noon.

For an eloquent analysis of the issue, see law prof Wendy Parmet’s commentary published in WBUR’s Cognoscenti, “What Deporting Sick Immigrants Says About America.”  Professor Parmet observes that “to fully grasp why the Trump administration has targeted sick and dying children, one needs to think not only about the children, but also their caregivers. The doctors, nurses and aides who treat them; the churchgoers who raise money for them; and the neighbors who support their families. They are also targets of the policy.  By caring for immigrants in need, they reaffirm that immigrants, even the most vulnerable, are our fellow human beings, fully worthy of compassion and respect. Even more, by caring for those who are ill, caregivers give lie to acting USCIS director Ken Cuccinelli’s claim that we can only welcome those who are self-sufficient.”

The Trump Administration seems to believe that there’s no limit to the cruelty that the American people will tolerate in our name.  We can only hope that’s not true, and work to make it so.