Quite the complex situation involving an illegal immigrant in Alamance County. I’ll start off by saying these things are going to keep happening if Sheriff Terry Johnson stays serious about cracking down on illegals.
The situation is mild-mannered library employee Marxavi Angel Martinez was arrested and now faces deportation. The N&O story describing the circumstances of her arrest begins ominously:
Alamance County has been identifying and deporting illegal immigrants from its jails for more than a year, but now a librarian’s arrest has some worried that county officials may be using another tool — public health department medical records.
But read carefully and take note that Martinez’ arrest comes after an SBI investigation requested by Johnson after county officials raised concerns about falsification of documents at the county health department:
The controversy arose in May, when the county’s health board heard that employees at the public clinic would write notes to illegal immigrants’ employers excusing them for illness. In the notes, they called the patients by false names, the officials said. The names, they said, were different than those on the medical records.
Some county officials asked the sheriff to investigate the practice. The sheriff called in the SBI, and the medical director and a nurse were suspended.
…..Johnson told reporters that Martinez got prenatal care at the department. He also said the tip about her immigration status came from a county employee and was related to the health department investigation.
It seems to me that if Johnson wants to sweep the streets of illegal immigrants, he could do just that by hanging out at the county health department which, on the face of it, appears to have been going beyond its (humane) duty to provide health care to illegals by assisting them in falsifying records. That’s a violation of taxpayers’ trust, as a Burlington lawyer points out:
Keith Whited, a Burlington lawyer and health board chairman, said county employees should not help illegal immigrants use false identities. However, he said he has no concerns about the health department serving illegal immigrants.
“Getting care is not a crime,” Whited said. “But they were assisting them to commit a fraud on their employers.”
With so many illegal immigrants committing other crimes, there still remains the question of why a mild-mannered library employee is sitting in a Winston-Salem. A Burlington Times-News columnist further explores that question.
