Implementing immigration law complicated; health care resources impossible to untangle

Ana-Cecilia De Marquez, 43, rubs her belly when she talks. The illegal immigrant has bothersome and sometimes painful symptoms that require her to stay close to her Goose Creek mobile home.

"It's painful, like I'm going to deliver a baby," De Marquez said. "It feels like a wound inside."

De Marquez, who moved to the U.S. from El Salvador three years ago, is uninsured. She said she has been bandied about the health care system for two years, unable to get her symptoms under control.

"So what?" say some opponents of illegal immigration. They don't think undocumented people should be able to receive health care at public expense.

Russ Henderson, a U.S. citizen and retired military man, lives in neighboring Ladson and is outspoken on the issue. "Every time an illegal uses services the American people pay for, they are stealing," he said. "Go back and let your government take care of you."

Henderson is not alone in his point of view. Illegal immigration was second to the economy in the top four issues that matter most among South Carolina Republicans surveyed in primary exit polls. State legislators responded and passed the Illegal Immigration Reform Act, which became law in June.

The law bans any state-funded non-emergency medical care for adult undocumented immigrants. Exceptions are made for immunizations, prenatal care and communicable diseases.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.