Editorial: Seek medical care and get deported?

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, July 30, 2025

July 30 was the deadline. And the Oregon Health Authority told us Tuesday that is not certain how it will respond to a request from the federal government for details that include the immigration status of low-income, state health care patients.

The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services requested the information. The data may be used to roundup patients because of their immigration status. And that’s what worries Oregon officials.

“OHA is carefully considering how to respond to this CMS request, because we can’t control how CMS will use the data,” Amy Bacher, a spokesperson for OHA told us in an email. “For this reason, we’re reviewing all legal and policy options we have to try to prevent its misuse. Oregon is part of a lawsuit to prevent CMS from sharing protected Medicaid information with the Department of Homeland Security. It also seeks to prevent the data from being used for immigration enforcement purposes.”

We asked about the back and forth communications between OHA and the federal government. Bacher did not reveal any more than the statement we included above.

The Associated Press reported about two weeks ago that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to data about Medicaid enrollees “to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States.”

Laws should be enforced. Immigration laws should be enforced. There is the matter of how it is done.

Seek medical care and risk deportation? It is more complicated than that, but that feels so wrong.

The Lund Report has been covering this issue closely. You can find read that here: thelundreport.org.