Child birth calls ring in from the border

San Diego Fire and Rescue crews were called to the San Ysidro border crossing for nearly 160 childbirth emergencies in 2012 — one almost every other day.

Such calls continued in 2013, with 15 childbirth emergency calls to the gateway into Tijuana in January, eight in February and 17 in March, according to city records obtained by U-T Watchdog.

There are no statistics on how many of the moms being rushed by emergency crews to local hospitals are U.S. citizens, as federal laws prohibit emergency crews and hospital teams from asking. Babies born under the circumstances are U.S. citizens as a birthright.

“Our crews view the situation as patients needing medical attention,” Fire and Rescue spokesman Maurice Luque said. “We leave enforcement of immigration laws to the appropriate authorities.”

May 9, 2013
Trent Seibert
utsandiego.com

Dr. Jim Dunford, the medical director of the city of San Diego, says that emergency crews and hospitals largely direct expecting moms to labor and delivery wings. It’s only the most urgent cases where babies are delivered in the emergency room.

The numbers concern some activists in the immigration debate.

“We have people who are coming here to give birth, who want to give birth in the United States,” said Ted Hilton with Taxpayer Revolution, who has been studying immigration issues for years and championing stricter border controls.

“Once someone gives birth in the United States, they’re eligible to apply for food stamps, medical care, public housing and other benefits for that child because that child is automatically guaranteed U.S. citizenship,” he said.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S.-Mexico Border Program, looked at the pregnancy/childbirth emergency numbers and thought they seemed quite minimal.

“At first glance it seems these numbers are really nothing to worry about,” Rios said. “They are an extremely low percentage compared to the number of people who cross on a daily basis, especially through San Ysidro, the world’s most-crossed port of entry.”

Indeed, more than 300,000 cross that port of entry each day.
Rios also said that when Mexican nationals cross illegally, it’s not for nefarious reasons.

“I think that the problem is that people need to survive,” Rios said. “And people need to find ways to make ends meet. And so migration into the U.S. from Mexico has been taking place for many years and for many different reasons, whether it’s for family reunification or because farmers are being displaced in Mexico or because there might be better care in the U.S.”

The federal Medicaid program has $2 billion per year set aside to help pay for the medical costs of unauthorized immigrants, most of which goes to pay for delivering babies in emergency rooms, Kaiser Health News reported this year. Half of that money is being spent in California.

A Pew Research Hispanic Center study released this year counted 4.5 million U.S.-born children whose parents were unauthorized.

Staff writer Matt Clark contributed to this report