Gov. Abbott's order on immigration status sparks debate over healthcare access

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 for individuals who don't care to say to simply decline to answer the question."

While it specifically states that no one, regardless of immigration status, can be turned away from medical treatment, the order might prevent some from seeking it in the first place.

Critics of the order suggest it intends to intimidate undocumented immigrants from seeking help.

"It's in all of our best interests to make sure that people seek care when they are worried because it ends up costing more money when people delay it until there's an actual emergency," Krystal Gomez, an attorney with the Texas Immigration Law Council, said. "They know they're going to be asked about it. They don't know what happens to that information, and we're about to have an administration come in that may or may not seek those records, and we don't know what kind of protections there'll be on people's information."

The law is written so that it has not faced any legitimate legal challenges, but if the data proves insufficient, it could force a change in the language, which might find greater opposition.

"If a tougher order comes out, then we might begin to see some legal challenges," Chandler said.

ABC13 contacted the governor's office for additional comments, but his team referred us to his social media post in which Abbott urged hospitals to comply with the new order.

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