Thread: Border Cities Are Burdened With Calls for Help

Border Cities Are Burdened With Calls for Help

By IAN LOVETT

Published: August 25, 2012


CALEXICO, Calif. — The calls come in thick and fast from the border, just blocks from the fire station here.


Enlarge This Image

Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

Firefighters Ryan McEachen and Eddie Ainza tending to a man in Calexico, Calif., before taking him to El Centro Regional Medical Center.

Enlarge This Image


Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

People picked up in Calexico are often unable to pay their bills.

A woman suffered heatstroke in line at the port of entry. A person detained by customs officers complained of chest pain. An illegal immigrant broke his leg trying to hop the 20-foot wall that divides Calexico from its Mexican twin city, Mexicali.
\
In each case, the Calexico Fire Department responded.

All along the Southwest border, from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex., local fire departments respond to medical calls as they would to any emergencies within their city limits. But such calls for medical assistance at the border have become a growing burden on the finances and resources of fire departments in cities like this one, in the California desert 100 miles east of San Diego.

Last year, with trips to the port of entry and the Border Patrol station and others to assist injured fence-jumpers, Calexico firefighters responded to 725 calls associated with the border — a fifth of all calls the department received.

Chief Pete Mercado said the department’s lone ambulance would sometimes make 10 trips to the port of entry in a given day. For many of those, he said, the department is not able to collect payment, while the ambulance is rendered unavailable for other emergencies.

“It’s a very difficult thing for us to continue to do without some type of funding,” Chief Mercado said. “We’ve absorbed the cost for all these years. I can’t express how difficult it is.”

Representative Bob Filner, a Democrat who represents California’s entire border with Mexico, introduced a bill last year that would have required the federal government to reimburse cities for the cost of providing emergency response services at the border. But with Congress struggling to reduce the $1 trillion federal deficit, the bill seems unlikely to pass.

“At a time when every city budget is affected, the federal government should not be relying on local revenue to deal with these issues,” Mr. Filner said. “Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of the border situation in Congress.”

Calexico is hardly the only city fire department strained by constant runs to the border.

In San Diego, the Fire Department responded to more than 2,000 medical emergencies at border crossings last year. In San Luis, Ariz., at least 70 percent of the calls that the Fire Department receives come from the port of entry, officials said.

A huge portion of the patients at the ports of entry or in Border Patrol custody have no health insurance, according to the fire departments, leaving the departments to cover the cost of care.

In El Paso through the first six months of this year, the Fire Department collected reimbursement on 18 percent of the cost of calls to the ports of entry, compared with a collection rate of more than 50 percent for all calls.

In Douglas, Ariz., the fire chief, Mario Novoa, estimated that about 15 percent of the department’s calls came from the port of entry.

Firefighters also offer medical assistance to people the Border Patrol finds in the desert, more than 25 miles outside the city limits.

Chief Novoa called the collection rate on trips associated with the border “dismal” and “a burden on the taxpayers.”

Not all calls from the border involve medical emergencies. In the area around Calexico, many citizens who moved to Mexico after the economic crisis of 2008 in search of a lower cost of living return to the United States for medical care, firefighters said, often calling 911 to get to the hospital. Others, tired of waiting in line at the port of entry, where the sun is a hammer, use the ambulance like a taxi to get across the border more quickly.

“We do have individuals who abuse the system,” said Luis Cebreros, a spokesman for the San Luis Fire Department.

Chief Mercado said without assistance from the federal government to help offset the cost of the border runs, he worries that Calexico city officials might outsource the fire department.

Already, the federal government does cover some of the costs that local fire departments incur in responding to calls from the border. Some departments received federal grants — in San Luis, the grants account for most of the fire department’s operating budget, while in Calexico and Douglas, grants make up less than 10 percent of the budgets, according to fire officials.

In addition, the federal government is responsible for the cost of medical care when a person has been taken into custody by customs officers or Border Patrol agents.

In practice, however, fire chiefs in several border cities said they were seldom able to collect any reimbursement from the United States Customs and Border Protection service in such cases.

“Sometimes the calls do originate from the Border Patrol, when the patient is in custody, and the bill does get sent to the federal government,” Chief Novoa said. “The fact of the matter is, though, we don’t recoup anything. You’d think it would be a no-brainer.”

Officials from Customs and Border Protection declined to provide statistics about reimbursement for medical treatment of people in custody.

In Calexico, each call — be it a heart attack or someone looking for a ride — usually ties up the city’s lone ambulance for at least an hour, as firefighters drive to the nearest hospital, in neighboring El Centro, and back.

Sylvia Bernal said she worries that the delay might have been fatal for her mother. Eight years ago, Ms. Bernal, now 62, called 911 when her mother began complaining of back pain. The Calexico Fire Department sent a fire truck and paramedics, but they waited 20 minutes for the ambulance, which was on another call, to arrive.

By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, her mother’s lung had collapsed. She died hours later.

“I don’t know what would have happened if the ambulance would have gotten there in time,” Ms. Bernal said. “To have to live with this ‘what if’ for a long time, I don’t wish that on anyone.”


A version of this article appeared in print on August 26, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Border Cities Are Burdened With Calls for Help.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/us...ical-help.html

Here's something else that city, county and state taxpayers have to pay for:

California taxpayers spend $65 million each year to detain illegal aliens for ICE.

http://www.alipac.us/f12/secure-comm...n-year-262977/