It’s harsh, but many deport them to their home country. The NY Times has an extensive piece detailing the practice, and how hospitals are caught in the middle of a situation with no clear guidance:

There is only limited federal financing for these fragile patients, and no governmental oversight of what happens to them. Instead, it is left to individual hospitals, many of whom see themselves as stranded at the crossroads of a failed immigration policy and a failed health care system, to cut through a thicket of financial, legal and ethical concerns.

There are some heartbreaking cases. Like this one of a 51-year old Chinese immigrant, with no family Stateside and estranged from his family in China, that places this Manhattan community hospital in a quandary:

In the case of Kong Fong Yu, in contrast, a Manhattan hospital has proceeded less decisively, keeping Mr. Yu, a stroke victim, as a boarder for 18 months now as it grapples with whether to send him back to China or to subsidize him in a nursing home indefinitely.

topics: immigrant, hospital