Health and privacy in danger

AS ROUNDUPS of undocumented workers continued last week with the largest ever single-site bust - of 600 employees at a transformer plant in Mississippi - a North Carolina case raises new concerns that the privacy rights of all Americans are eroding.

The case centers on Marxavi Angel Martinez, a 23-year-old library worker, now married with a 16-month-old son, in the Piedmont town of Graham. When she was 3, her family came to the United States legally from Mexico, but her parents overstayed their visas. She went on to be a high school honor student and cheerleader, but was arrested in July for using an illegal Social Security number to apply for a job. She pleaded guilty. Her husband was arrested. Her parents, according to news accounts, turned themselves in and also face deportation.

At issue is whether Martinez's arrest was at all a result of seeking prenatal services at the county health department. The Alamance County sheriff said his office received a tip from "a confidential source" about an illegal county employee receiving medical services. But how would authorities have had anything to act on without someone illegally going through the woman's private medical records?

What Martinez did was wrong. The reaction of the system was worse. Martinez is being punished for the actions of her parents. If she is deported, her son, a native-born US citizen, faces either exile or separation from his parents. Immigrants may increasingly avoid proper medical care until they suffer far more costly illnesses and epidemics. The post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act generated many concerns about government snooping in libraries.

Now we have an immigration case in which, quite possibly, snooping at the clinic got someone fired at the library - and arrested.