Texas Governor Orders Hospitals to Collect Data on Patients’ Immigration Status

The governor of the state of Texas (United States), Republican Greg Abbott, has signed an order this Thursday that requires hospitals to collect data on the immigration status of their patients in order to calculate the state’s health spending dedicated to illegal foreigners. The measure will come into effect on November 1 and aims to periodically collect data on “patients who are not legally in the United States”, as well as on the number of hospital discharges, emergency room visits and the costs of care, according to the newspaper ‘The Hill’. “Due to the open border policies of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Texas has had to foot the bill for the medical costs of individuals who are in the state illegally,” Abbott said. After that, he explained that these expenses increase the costs of medical care for Texans and that the authorities should not have to “assume the burden”, shifting the responsibility to the federal government. “That’s why today I issued an executive order requiring that the health care costs of illegal immigrants in our state be covered. Texas will hold the Biden-Harris Administration accountable for the consequences of its open border policies, and we will fight to ensure that they return the money for their costly and dangerous policies to Texas,” Abbott added. The Texas governor has been at odds with the White House for months over the immigration issue, and in early 2023 he installed a chain of buoys in the Rio Grande to try to prevent the entry of migrants from Mexican territory, a decision that was finally stopped by a court.