Migrant advocacy groups urge patients not share citizenship status with hospitals

SAN JUAN, Texas ( Border Report ) — A prominent civil rights organization in South Texas that advocates for migrant rights on Friday said they are urging migrants not to disclose citizenship information to hospitals, if asked, and to continue to seek necessary health care.

The warning by La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday signed an executive order that requires hospitals to ask the citizenship status of patients in order for the State of Texas to compile a report on how much money Texas public hospitals are spending on healthcare for undocumented migrants.

The governor’s order takes effect on Nov. 1, requiring hospitals to send the information to the Texas Health and Services Commission.

The head La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) , says her group is warning undocumented migrants that they cannot be denied health care at a hospital and they should not divulge their citizenship status.

“They should not be answering questions about citizenship,” LUPE Executive Director Tania Chavez-Camacho told Border Report on Friday from their headquarters in the Rio Grande Valley. “What we are recommending our community members is that they share the information that they would always have, like their name and address.”

“We condemn the actions that the governor has made. Why? Because this is going to deter our immigrant community from seeking the care that they need,” Chavez-Camacho said.

Her nonprofit — founded by the late Cesar Chavez — is urging residents to continue to seek the healthcare services that they need and to not forgo going to the doctor’s office, or the hospital, or deny preventative care because of immigration fears.

Under federal law, health care cannot be denied. In his three-page executive order, Abbott specified that the Texas Health and Services Commission must “direct hospitals to inform the patient, while collecting this information, from the patient, that, as required by federal law, any response to such information requests will not affect patient care.”

However, migrant advocate organizations, like LUPE and the Texas ACLU, say undocumented immigrants will likely be fearful to go to hospitals knowing this information will be asked.

“People will be afraid to go to the hospital because they will perceive, I think, very fairly, that Texas is threatening their access to health care through this question,” ACLU Texas lawyer David Donatti told Border Report on Friday.

“If you conscript hospital workers, doctors, nurses, to act as state immigration enforcers, people will be afraid to go to the hospital. They will delay seeking medical care,” Donatti said. This will “end up impacting them by deteriorating their health outcomes, affecting their families and costing all of us more money.”

In Far West Texas, the University Medical Center of El Paso, on Friday said that the executive order will extend not only to public hospitals, but to all healthcare providers identified by HHS.

“We have verified through the state that the executive order issued by Gov. Abbott regarding migrant care applies to a larger population of hospitals, public and private. The executive order specifically indicates that the term “hospitals” includes “acute care hospitals enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and any additional providers identified by the Health and Human Services Commission,” UMC officials said.

Donatti, of the ACLU, says migrants are being used as “scapegoats” for “political theater” during this contentious election year where immigration and the border are issues dividing the country.

“The governor will never miss an opportunity to scapegoat migrants,” said Donatti who called the order a “political bomb.”

Abbott’s “executive order requiring hospitals to report healthcare costs for visits from undocumented immigrants has absolutely nothing to do with recouping costs and everything to do with scapegoating immigrants and targeting border communities,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, tweeted Friday on X.

“This executive order is an extraordinary escalation of the tactics he will use to feed racist ideologies and only threatens to destabilize the economic prosperity of Texas by further disenfranchising a critical part of our community,” RAICES spokesperson Faisal Al-Juburi said.

Donatti says that by disclosing citizenship information, it could set up migrants for arrest and deportation.

“It does put you on a pipeline to law enforcement arrest. We at the ACLU have seen this happen before,” Donatti said.

Donatti said his organization is considering legal action to stop the order from taking effect.

But he doubts it will go into effect on Nov. 1, because that gives the Texas Health and Human Services Commission less than three months to create rules for carrying out the order for all hospitals and healthcare providers and to disseminate the information to the entire state.

Abbott has ordered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to collect the data and provide a report assessing “costs to the Texas public hospital system imposed by the federal government’s open-border policies” to the governor’s office, lieutenant governor’s office and to the speaker of the Texas House by Jan. 1, 2026.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to BorderReport.