A judge in Nashville granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday evening to stop the Tennessee Health Department from sharing identifying information of undocumented children who have critical illnesses or physical disabilities with the state’s immigration enforcement office.Limited time: Save 25% on NBC News subscriptionGet exclusive reporting, live Q&As and ad-free reading.The order by Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal of the Davidson County Chancery Court was issued shortly after a Tennessee legal and advocacy nonprofit group filed a lawsuit against the Health Department.The suit was filed on behalf of three Nashville physicians seeking to block the implementation of a new state law set to go into effect next week.The law requires local health departments to “report individuals and all identifying information about such individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States” to the Centralized Immigration Enforcement Division, a state office created last year to oversee collaboration with federal immigration authorities.
Some of that identifying information included the names of about 400 immigrant children who receive lifesaving care through a specialized public health care program known as Children’s Special Services.The parents of those children received letters from the Health Department this month letting them know that if they kept their sons and daughters enrolled in the program past June 30, the agency would turn their children’s information over to state immigration authorities.Brenda, a Honduran woman whose 12-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, said the letters posed a great conundrum to parents like her.
Removing children from the program means they won’t be able to pay for the medical services they need, “but if we stay, they’ll come knocking on our door asking about our children as if they were criminals — we are waiting for a miracle to stop the new state law from going into effect next month,” sai...