After doing some research on this issue I ran across these Dallas Morning News articles:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/080810dnmetbabies.2be9a7e.html
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/061206dnmetmoms.d9b9669.html
and this politifact.com article:
I discovered that a major claim made by the authors about Parkland Hospital in Dallas is false according to Parkland Hospital. I know that the Dallas Morning News could care less but I did send this email to poltifact.com:
Dear Sirs,
In the aforementioned article you quoted the Dallas Morning News article by SHERRY JACOBSON as follows:
“To offer a concrete example, we found a 2006 article from the Dallas Morning News about Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, a safety-net facility for poor residents. As many of 70 percent of the roughly 16,000 women giving birth annually at the hospital were immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally, according to one survey cited in the story.”
You called this “ample evidence” and a “concrete example”. Actually, Parkland Hospital stated this about the Dallas Morning News article:
“Misinformation about Parkland’s patient population
Numerous circulated reports state erroneously that a “patient survey” conducted in 2006 revealed that 70 percent of women who give birth at Parkland are “illegal immigrants.” The data in question, reported in an article in The Dallas Morning News, was a calculation during a three-month period of labor and delivery patients who did not qualify for Medicaid. Some of these patients lacked immigration documentation and some did not.”
Please see the entire press release here:
http://www.parklandhospital.com/pdf/GetTheFacts.pdf
I have had dealings with the Dallas Morning News and a little research into SHERRY JACOBSON might prove interesting so in the future I would highly recommend you really look hard at anything you get from the these folks.
Does this information tilt your Truth-O-Meter?
I was hoping they might care about the accuracy of their facts. In any case, it does appear that Republican rhetoric has once again bumped up against that nasty pest – the facts.
2nd Response for PolitiFact:
Thanks–all very interesting. Alas, the new Pew numbers came out after our story did (though I talked extensively to Pew while researching mine, and I have heard no complaints from them (or anyone, really) about what we wrote.
Thanks for reading us and being appreciative of our work!
All best,
Lou Jacobson, staff writer, PolitiFact
Reply to 1st Response:
Lou,
I tried to research the origins of the 70% number. It was one of those numbers that got picked up and repeated ad nausea. The closest I could find was a snopes investigation in November of 2006 (DMN articles came out in June) at:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp
In this investigation they stated, “A recent hospital analysis concluded that the average maternity ward patient at Parkland is a 25-year-old, married Hispanic woman giving birth to her second child. The Parkland staff does not ask maternity patients whether they are illegal immigrants, so the preponderance of illegal aliens among this group has to be inferred through other means.” but never explained what the “other means” were.
The New York Times also came out with a related article in 2006 but their numbers were much lower:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/us/18immig.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=&st=nyt
I used to live in Dallas and there is a really interesting history of antagonism and debate between the Dallas Morning News, Parkland Hospital and Parkland’s teaching university (UT Southwestern Teaching Hospital):
DMN Investigations
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2010/hospitals/
UT Southwestern Teaching Hospital for Parkland Response to DMN Investigation
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept528418/files/601077.html
Detailed Responses
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept528418/files/601038.html
Anyway, if you were to update the article I think the recent Pew study would be a much more accurate number to base your final Truth-O-Meter on (and a much lower number than your current article states):
“An estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were the offspring of unauthorized immigrants, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center.”
http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=125
I was surprised at what a very HOT issue this is and was so it may be worth your while to revisit it…
1st Response From PolitiFact:
Thanks for your note. Long story short, I don’t think what you cite would change our ruling, but I’m glad you brought it to our attention.
1) The “ample evidence” does not refer exclusively to the Parkland info. It’s based on all of our reporting.
2) I’m a little unclear on what exactly the Parkland release is saying. If you read it closely, it’s more than a little vague. They acknowledge that there was a survey; they said it was taken over three months of labor-delivery patients; and they said some lacked valid papers and some did not. What exactly are they contradicting in my report? The 70 percent figure? Maybe, but they didn’t give a better figure. Do they say that it’s 70 percent of a smaller pool of women (i,e,, those who don’t qualify for Medicaid)? Fine, maybe the total number of illegal immigrants giving birth there is lower, but if it’s something approaching 70 percent of any decent-sized pool (they are a hospital that serves an economically disadvantafed demographic after all) then it’s still a significant number. Bottom line is, unless I’m missing something, the news release doesn’t provide us with any hard refutation of anything we wrote. If they do, we’ll reconsider. Which brings us to…
3) I spoke to the hospital while writing the story, and they declined comment because they say they don’t track immigration status. They also didn’t give me this news release. And…
4) I have heard nothing from Parkland complaining about our characterization. (I think I even forwarded them the story, though it’s possible I may have inadvertently forgotten to do so.)
Anyway, thanks for writing–it’s a good topic for discussion. But for now, I think we’ll stick with what we have.
All best,
Lou Jacobson