Editorial: Hospital correct to report illegal applicant


12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, August 12, 2008

We believe that hospitals should be a safe place where even illegal immigrants can go without fear of being arrested or deported. For hospital patients, that is.

When it comes to job applicants, hospitals are no different from any other employer. When they determine that an applicant might be violating the law, such as submitting a false Social Security number, hospitals should alert the police.

That's what Trinity Medical Center in Carrollton did when MarÃ*a MartÃ*nez applied for a job in mid-July. When she returned for a follow-up meeting to discuss her application, Carrolton police arrested her, and she now faces deportation. Relatives assert that what the hospital did was immoral. The immigrant-rights group Acción America is organizing a protest.

"Hospitals are safe zones," said Acción president Carlos Quintanilla. He contends that other North Texas hospitals routinely reject suspicious job applicants without alerting police or immigration authorities. Trinity, he said, took a far more active and collaborative role to have Ms. MartÃ*nez arrested.

Susan Watson, the hospital's spokeswoman, says she is perplexed by the protests. "It really had nothing to do with this person's immigration status. It had to do with breaking the law," she said.

Trinity made a tough but correct choice. To do anything less would be tantamount to telling such job applicants, "We don't care what you're doing, just don't do it here." And that's what must change in the mindset of American employers if this country has any hope of seriously reducing its illegal immigrant population.

Employers are key to solving this problem because jobs are what draw illegal immigrants here. Many employers skirt the law because they need a source of cheap labor, and our current immigration laws don't give them adequate access to the legal labor pool they need.

For all concerned, the best route for fixing our broken system is to demand that Congress resume work immediately on comprehensive immigration reform. But organizing protests against employers who obey the law, suggesting they should look the other way, only undermines the cause of reform that immigration advocates claim to support.
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