State Delays Ban on Prenatal Care for Immigrants

New legal challenges have forced California to postpone its plans to deny prenatal services to illegal immigrant women until at least Sept. 1, state officials said Wednesday.

Long supported by Gov. Pete Wilson, the cutoff was scheduled to go into effect sometime this month as part of California’s response to last year’s sweeping overhaul of federal welfare law. The new federal statute bars state and local governments from providing nonemergency medical services to illegal immigrants and to some temporary legal residents.

However, a number of groups have sued to block Sacramento’s application of the ban, alleging that, as written, it violates both state and federal laws. Among the plaintiffs are groups representing pregnant women, private clinics, immigrants rights advocates and the California Medical Assn.

A hearing on one of those suits is scheduled for today in Oakland Superior Court. But, according to the attorneys involved, the judge is likely to delay the proceedings because state officials said that they are revising their guidelines for the cutoff, which will affect about 70,000 women.

Ken August, a spokesman for the California Department of Health Services, said Sept. 1 is now the earliest date on which the ban could be implemented.

Plaintiffs in the Oakland case contend that the Wilson administration’s current plans are illegal because, among other things, they violate a federal statute that exempts from the cutoff those pregnant immigrant women whose older children were battered by their fathers.

Critics charge that denying prenatal care to illegal immigrants will increase public health costs because more pregnant women will go to emergency rooms for high-risk deliveries that could have been prevented by earlier checkups.

“This care is absolutely essential,” said Ana O’Connor, associate director of La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland, which is among the groups suing the state. “Without prenatal care, we’re going to be delivering unhealthy babies.”

The governor does not dispute the importance of prenatal care, but says limited state funds should go to legal immigrants and U.S. citizens. “Illegal immigrants should not be getting prenatal care courtesy of California taxpayers, when people here legitimately cannot get this help,” said Lisa Kalustian, a spokeswoman for Wilson.

The new federal welfare law has given Wilson an opportunity to accomplish many of the goals of Proposition 187, the controversial 1994 state ballot initiative he championed. Implementation of that measure has been delayed by a series of legal challenges.

But the new federal statute contains no timetable for dropping illegal immigrants from health care programs, and no other state has moved as aggressively as California to comply with the new ban.

In November, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco barred Wilson’s administration from imposing “emergency” guidelines that would have expedited implementation of the prenatal care cutoff. Moreover, another pending federal lawsuit against both Washington and Sacramento alleges that last year’s wholesale change in the welfare law violates 10th Amendment protections of states’ rights.

State officials, however, are proceeding with Wilson’s plan to deny illegal immigrants more than 200 other state services, including mental health care and fishing licenses. Guidelines for those cutoffs, including a residency verification system for all people attempting to obtain state services, are not expected to be ready until next year, officials say.