Welcome!
Welcome to AccessDenied: A Conversation on Unauthorized Im/migration and Health! The aim of this blog is to challenge readers and contributors to re-think the political common sense that denies migrants and immigrants access to health care and impedes their capacity to enjoy the social determinants of good health. We also consider how the increased movement of people across national borders affects the health of receiving communities.
We ask our readers and contributors to consider some morally and politically tough questions:
News Round Up In-Brief
U.S. News:
- In Chicago, a young, undocumented man left paralyzed after falling from a building was deported to Mexico after being unable to pay his hospital bills. The young man recently died in a Mexican hospital that was not able to tend to his needs.
- A recent editorial highlights the lack of legal representation available for undocumented immigrants in New York.
- The Obama administration recently created a new hotline for immigration detainees.
- Citizenship and Immigration Services is proposing a change to immigration procedures that can help prevent the separation of undocumented residents from spouses and children.
- Even though many Latinos in the U.S. disapprove of President Obama’s immigration policies, they favor the president over a Republican contender.
- A recent study conducted by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health shows links between migrating at a young age and increased risk of psychotic disorders. Potential reasons for the increased risk include the stress of minority status, social changes, and vitamin D deficiencies that many immigrants experience after migrating.
When the Ward is Your Mooring: The Human and Economic Costs of Long-Term Acute Care for Undocumented Immigrants in the U.S. – Nora Kenworthy
Nora Kenworthy
Columbia
A recent New York Times article by John Leland recounted the lengthy medical history of Raymond Fok, an uninsured and undocumented immigrant who ended up marooned at New York City’s Downtown Hospital for 19 months after surviving a stroke. Although suffering from chronic health problems, including kidney failure, and initially in need of acute care, Mr. Fok remained in the hospital long after his initial emergency because he had no other place to go.
Without insurance or public benefits, numerous immigrants in the U.S. find similar fates in public hospitals, learning that without chronic or community-based services to assist them in recovery, they cannot be discharged. Rather than qualifying for a home health aide, or getting transferred to a nursing home, Mr. Fok’s status left him in the expensive care of an already cash-strapped public hospital. As Leland writes: “Mr. Fok’s immigration status never kept him from receiving treatment, but it helped make sure that his care would be delivered in the most expensive setting possible and in a place no one wants to spend more time than necessary.” Read more…
The Psychiatric Hospital as Safe House? Strange Asylum for Undocumented Immigrants with Mental Health Needs – Nora Kenworthy
Nora Kenworthy
Columbia
Over the past few years, stories have trickled into the U.S. national media about hospitals struggling to cope with the burden of caring for undocumented immigrants who lack insurance and are ineligible for benefits. These reports, including a recent series by New York Times reporter Kevin Sack and an even more recent NYT piece by Sam Roberts, feature accounts of chronically-ill patients being removed from dialysis, or ‘repatriated’ to their countries of origin in comas, to be cared for by long-lost and poorly-equipped relatives. As Luis Plascencia wrote on this blog a few years ago, these rare glimpses into hospital decision-making processes indicate that rising costs and non-existent legal protections for immigrants have led to a ‘privatization’ and ‘outsourcing’ of deportation by health care institutions.
To date, this meager public attention has focused exclusively on hospitals treating physical illnesses. Virtually no mention has been made of how psychiatric and mental health institutions handle undocumented immigrants. Read more…
Shattered by Security: The Impact of Secure Communities on Families – Rachel Stonecipher
Rachel Stonecipher
SMU
Although ICE’s Secure Communities initiative claims to prioritize “the removal of criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety, and repeat immigration violators,” recent national reports by PBS Frontline and the Applied Research Center (ARC) indicate that most immigrants taken into ICE custody have no serious criminal history—and, moreover, that a growing number are parents with dependent children.
News Round Up In-Brief
U.S. News
- The Supreme Court announced that it would begin hearing arguments about state immigration laws in April, beginning with Arizona law SB1070, the first in a series of state laws targeting undocumented immigrants. Justice Elena Kagan is recusing herself from hearing the arguments about Arizona’s immigration law on account of filing a lawsuit against Arizona during her tenure as solicitor general.
- Alabama’s attorney general, Luther Strange, recommends the state legislature repeal some parts of the state’s new law until federal courts clarify states’ roles in setting immigration policy.
- With a new training program for lawyers and enforcement officials, The Department of Homeland Security hopes to speed up deportations of criminals and suspend deportations of undocumented immigrants without a criminal record. Read more…
News Round Up In-Brief
U.S. News
- In the United States, deportation rates reach some of the highest levels in the nation’s history, even though deportation policies under the Obama administration are inconsistent.
- A new UCLA report analyzed anti-immigrant radio rhetoric, suggesting potential links to anti-immigrant media and increased rates of anti-Latino hate crimes.
- Immigration has been a persistent theme in the republican presidential nomination debates, particularly for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry. In one debate, the two nomination hopefuls sparred over Romney hiring a lawn maintenance company that allegedly employed undocumented workers. Both Romney and Perry have critiqued each other for legislation they supported in their home states. Rick Perry signed a law that allowed children of undocumented laborers to pay in-state tuition while attending Texas colleges (a measure supported by former president Bill Clinton), and under the Massachusetts health care law Romney signed in 2006, undocumented immigrants are allowed access to medical services through the state’s Health Safety Net fund. Romney’s rivals have critiqued the Massachusetts law, and Romney has responded by claiming his democratic successor is responsible for details surrounding the health safety net services. Read more…
News Round Up In-Brief
U.S. News
- A Federal District Court upheld Alabama’s immigration law that requires law enforcement officials to attempt to verify a person’s immigration status during traffic stops or arrests if they “reasonably suspect” the person is in the country illegally. As a result of the ruling, some immigrant families have removed their children from Alabama schools to avoid attention from law enforcement. Other families have moved out of the state altogether, some just a few hours after the court ruling, leaving behind their homes and belongings.
- A Colorado farmer faced a labor shortage after hiring fewer immigrant workers through the federal H-2A program this year. With high unemployment rates, the farmer assumed local workers would take on agricultural jobs paying $10.50 per hour, but soon discovered that local workers were unwilling to engage in the physically demanding work. Farmworker shortages, believed to be connected with recent immigration legislation, have also occurred in Georgia, costing the state an estimated $75 million. Read more…
News Round Up In-Brief
U.S. News
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with community organizations that support immigrants to share information about health programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. A particular focus of these education efforts is to explain how Health Reform will benefit immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are still barred from receiving federal benefits, but legal immigrants may be eligible for some programs even before their five-year waiting period is up.
- Obama’s Secure Communities program continues to attract criticism, particularly for its “confusing” stance regarding who should be prioritized for deportation. Despite statements by the Obama administration that the program should only target the most serious criminal offenders, reports continue that immigrants are being detained and deported for traffic violations and other minor infractions. Some local law enforcement representatives worry that this approach undermines trust and can endanger community policing. Read more…
Why Structural Vulnerability? Why Latino Migrants in the United States? – James Quesada
James Quesada
San Francisco State University
Why propose another concept that appears to be a variation on a well-established theme … social suffering, the social production of disease and distress, the effects of violence of all kinds upon people and communities throughout the world? And why select a particular population like Latino migrants to represent how insidious and gripping structural vulnerability can be to one’s health and livelihood?
In a special issue of the journal Medical Anthropology, “Structural Vulnerability: Latino Migrants in the United States,” [1] the social science concept of structural vulnerability is introduced and put to use by medical anthropologists familiar with the plight of Latino migrants in the United States. Structural vulnerability refers to one’s position in social hierarchies that imposes physical-emotional suffering on specific population groups and individuals in patterned ways. Read more…
