An executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott requires public hospitals to ask patients’ immigration status.
It went into effect on Nov. 1 but is garnering a lot of attention after a social media post from a local cardiologist went viral.
The executive order requires hospitals that get public money to ask patients if they are in the U.S. legally and then report those numbers and the cost of treatment to the state. But does the order actually prevent people from seeking help in the first place?
Seth Chandler is a law professor at the University of Houston. He said Abbott’s order, GA-46, does not require patients to answer questions about their immigration status.
“The order, by its terms, does not require anyone to answer it,” Chandler said. “The order as written does not require an answer either way to the question, are you unlawfully present, and that leaves the opportunity …