• Although Border Patrol apprehensions have lessened in recent years, the deaths of migrants in the Arizona desert due to dehydration and heat exhaustion have remained high. Last fiscal year there were 463 deaths, a number rivaled only by the 2005 fiscal year, in which there were three times as many apprehensions. Advocates and experts agree that as “border security” is tightened, migrants take increasingly remote and dangerous routes into the country. The New York Times obtained a map of the deaths from Tucson-based humanitarian organization Humane Borders and photographs of migrants’ belongings, currently being held along with 744 sets of unidentified remains at the Pima County medical examiner’s office.
• The Senate immigration bill leaves intact considerable delays and obstacles for immigrants’ access to health care, particularly to Medicaid. Undocumented immigrants on the proposed path to citizenship will have to wait an additional five years to become eligible for Medicaid (if they qualify), following the end of the 10-year “Registered Provisional Immigrant” status.
• It is unclear when and how the “border security” provisions of the proposed immigration reform bill will be used to determine whether unauthorized immigrants can, in fact, pursue citizenship after the 10-year provisional status.
• The immigration bill as passed May 21 by the Senate Judiciary Committee will allow a legal “second chance” to deportees not accused of any serious crimes, who have immediate family members in the country, or who arrived in the U.S. before their 16^th birthday.
• A group of immigration advocates, including representatives from the National Day Labor Organizing Network and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, asked President Obama to suspend the deportations of individuals who would be eligible for citizenship under the new immigration bill.
• The recent suicides of two Guatemalan detainees at the Eloy Detention Center in Eloy, Arizona, where half of all detainee deaths occurred this year, have prompted a call for investigation into staffing and oversight at the nation’s detention facilities. An article by Todd Miller for Border Wars describes the Eloy deaths and ICE’s response in more detail.
• An article by border reporter John Carlos Frey reports that the increase in Border Patrol agents on the U.S.-Mexico border between 2006 and 2009 has led to disturbing use of excessive force, evidenced by multiple fatal shootings since 2009.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement in support of making health insurance available to all immigrants regardless of status, so that immigrant and second-generation children, who number 18.4 million in the U.S., will be more likely to obtain adequate health care. This concern comes amidst a growing body of research that says the longer immigrants live in the country, the more health problems they develop – and the second generation fares even worse.
• While immigration reform marches on, Operation Streamline, a program to speed up deportations at the expense of immigrants’ constitutional rights, sends migrants to detention (with future deportation orders set), grants them a criminal record, and ruins their future chances to reenter or obtain a visa.

International News

• Australian Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor announced that asylum seeker families will now be released into the community on bridging visas, which entitle them to minimum financial support but not to work, while their claims are being heard. O’Connor attributed the new policy to the government’s recognition that detention is detrimental to mental health. At the same time, Australian officials have opened the remote Curtin detention center to children and families.
• Australia removed itself from the “migration zone,” passing legislation that allows all refugees and asylum seekers arriving by boat to be processed at offshore detention centers.
• UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s third Queen’s Speech announced a strict immigration bill that Cameron assures will be the toughest in Europe for new migrants. The bill, which may take years to iron out amongst Britain’s leading political parties, proposes heavy fines to landlords who lease to unauthorized immigrants, the deportation of foreign national prisoners, and limiting migrants’ access to the National Health System.
• The Toronto City Council voted to abolish the three-month waiting period for immigrants seeking access to the national health system, and to rescind recent cuts to refugee health care by the Canadian government that made refugees from “safe countries” eligible for basic care only. In addition, the Council called for more support for community clinics and for hospitals to eliminate high registration fees for those without insurance.

Prepared by Rachel Stoneciper

• The Associated Press published the results of its review of “medical repatriation” cases, concluding that a lack of regulations on hospitals regarding the care of non-citizens has led to 600 deportations in the last five years of patients, including those unconscious or in comas, whom the hospitals deemed “stabilized” enough to receive the rest of their care in their home countries.
• While the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times have banned the use of the phrase “illegal immigrant” to describe persons, the New York Times only suggested that its writers use alternatives when possible.
• House conservatives announced a plan to pursue their own version of immigration reform, to compete with the bipartisan plan backed by the Obama administration.
• No matter what reform plan triumphs, immigration reform is likely to exclude deportees, including the roughly 400,000 people deported yearly since 2009 – leaving them to handle the health consequences of deportation, and separation from American family members, without assistance.
• Although, in general, immigrant detainees are not entitled to legal counsel, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that detainees who are unable to represent themselves due to mental disability must be provided with an attorney.
• As an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws approaches, it is becoming more apparent to immigrant advocates that the U.S. lacks enough immigration lawyers to guide the millions of potential citizenship applicants through the new legal hurdles.
• The Supreme Court refused to hear the state of Alabama’s challenge to a lower court ruling that blocked several of the most exclusive provisions of its anti-immigration law, regarded as the nation’s strictest.
• A Huffington Post editorial called for expanding the insurance coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act to immigrant children, regardless of their legal status.
• Lawmakers in California have proposed that coming savings from Medicaid be used to support a basic county-administered health care program for immigrants, including the right to preventive care.
• Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law SB 160, a measure that intended to fix one the problems with Georgia’s strict immigration law, HB87. Changes to SB 160, however, expanded the state’s restrictions on the types of identification that immigrants could use.  The law attracted the attention of the agricultural industry, which has already been economically harmed by Georgia’s immigration laws.

International News

• Doctors visiting the Manus Island detention center, one of several offshore processing centers to which the Australian government sends asylum claimants, reported that the center is potentially harmful to the health of child detainees.
• Though there are no plans yet to remove child detainees from the Manus Island center, the controlling Labor Party in Australia announced that children will again be held in mainland detention centers.
• The Auckland District Health Board in New Zealand has asked the national government to clarify to visitors on temporary visas that they must pay for the health care they receive in New Zealand, to reduce the district’s occurrence of unpaid bills.
• Starting in May, the Swiss government will cap immigration from within the European Union, especially from the poorer EU states.
• Three foremen of a strawberry farm in Greece opened fire on a crowd of 200 Bangladeshi migrant workers who had demanded unpaid wages, wounding 28 people. None of the injuries were life-threatening and all three men were arrested. The town, Nea Manolada, has been the site of other violent attacks on migrants in recent years.

• Immigration advocates successfully pressured the AP into outlawing the word “illegal” when used to describe persons, prompting the New York Times to more seriously reconsider the term.

• The growing political clout of the United Farmworkers Union was in evidence April 11 when the Union struck a deal with crop growers on visas and pay scales for foreign farmworkers.

• Proposed immigration reforms make undocumented immigrants ineligible for federal public health benefits for at least 10 years, a move that would shift increased responsibility for their health care costs onto states and counties.

• The group of Senators working on immigration reform agreed on a plan that requires more border enforcement controls before undocumented immigrants can begin to proceed toward citizenship; however, there are no specific provisions in the bill that, if not met, would block the citizenship path.

• The current immigration reform proposal creates a “W-visa” for low-skilled workers from which they can, if desired, begin on a path to citizenship after one year. Immigrant advocates argue that the plan will not let in enough guest workers, starting at 20,000 per year and increasing to 75,000 annually after four years. Additionally, reforms will shift the visa system in favor of immigrants with employment-based visas, who will have more options than those with family visas to begin the path to citizenship.

• Because undocumented immigrants are not entitled to a lawyer, it is estimated that more than half of unaccompanied immigrant children face immigration courts without representation.

• New York dairy farmers are lobbying Congress for expansions to the existing agricultural guest-worker program, since the current program includes only seasonal workers and most dairy farmworkers work year-round.

• On April 10^th, immigrant rights activists across the country attended rallies and marches in major U.S. cities.  Access Denied contributor and co-founding member, Nolan Kline, attended the march in Atlanta, Georgia.

International News

• The United Nations International Labor Organization reported April 9 that an estimated 600,000 migrant workers are trapped into forced labor and sex slavery in the Middle East, due largely to the fact that employers sponsor their visas.

• Twenty-eight asylum seekers detained in Melbourne, Australia began a hunger strike April 8, asking the Australian government to either release or kill them.

• Hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have fled religious persecution to Indonesia, exacerbating the overcrowding in Indonesia’s refugee detention centers. The Sydney Morning Herald compared this situation to Australia’s detention of north Asian refugees.

Research

Biswas, Dan, Brigit Toebes, Anders Hjern, Henry Ascher, and Marie Norredam. 2012. Access to health care for undocumented migrants from a human rights perspective: A comparative study of Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Health and Human Rights: An International Journal 14(2). Retrieved April 21, 2013, from http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/536/829.

Prepared by Rachel Stonecipher 

• This announcement garnered swift responses — for instance, from David Weigel at Slate.com, who reflected on the role of activists in shifting discourse (including, above all, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas), and from New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan – who had asserted as late as October that the term is “clear and accurate.” Sullivan stuck to her guns even after interviewing veteran NYT journalist Julia Preston, who expressed dissatisfaction with Sullivan’s position.

• After yesterday’s AP announcement, however, Sullivan wrote that the NYT is also “reconsidering the term ‘illegal immigrant.‘” She’ll likely find support from her NYT colleague Lawrence Downes, one of the paper’s editorial page editors, who has written about his own often unsuccessful efforts to “keep trying to use ‘illegal immigrant’ dispassionately.”

• Months before Sullivan’s move to reconsider, linguistic anthropologist Jonathan Rosa of UMass Amherst, with the support of a wider groups of scholars along with the AAA Committee for Human Rights, published an online statement describing and, above all, deploring the use of the term. At the time, Rosa’s statement captured the attention of ABC news/Univision.

• The ABC/Univision piece also cites George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson’s useful 2006 paper on the framing of immigration, which lays bare the ideological foundations of U.S. public discourse – for instance, by observing that, “The problem is not being called the Illegal Employer Problem, and employers are not called ‘illegals.’”

• Here at AccessDenied, we have agonized long and hard over whether, how, and under what circumstances terms like “illegal” immigrant and migrant “illegality” ought to appear in writing. (See, for instance, this article and this commentary.)

• AccessDenied readers, what do you think? If you are a health researcher, health care provider, public health practitioner, activist, and/or migrant/immigrant yourself, what’s your perspective on the discursive shift that is apparently taking shape in the United States?

Prepared by Sarah Willen

• According to a Pew Research Center Survey, the majority of people in the United States believe that there should be a way for undocumented immigrants to remain the United States. The findings also point to divided opinions about whether to grant undocumented immigrants citizenship or legal permanent residency.
• Responding to a recent story about immigrants being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asked federal immigration officials to provide her more information about immigrants being held in solitary confinement at federal facilities.
•  In response to a New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan’s assertion that the term “illegal immigrant” is accurate and encompasses ideas about the immigration debate, linguistic anthropologist Jonathan Rosa responded by noting the term has no legal meaning.
• Hannah Hafter and Robin Reineke suggest steps to reduce deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border and call attention to the problems associated with harsh border control.
• Congress may still be awaiting a border security “trigger” to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
• The head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union has called for Congress to slow immigration reform efforts.
• Compared with other family members, siblings may be at a distinct disadvantage when applying for family visas to the U.S.
• Advocates in California hope that immigration reform will “slowly open the door” for undocumented immigrants to access public health care programs.
• In a state politically hostile to unauthorized immigrants, undocumented day laborers reflect on the immense difference a proposed amnesty program could make on their daily lives.

International News

• United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron promised more stringent rules to reduce immigrants’ access to social services, including health and housing benefits. Adding to Cameron’s statement, Immigration Minister Mark Harper claimed: “We want to make sure our rules are among the toughest in the world.”
• The number of undocumented children currently living in Greece is unclear due to disorganized detention practices and uncounted shelters, according to the Ombudsman for Children’s Rights.
• Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has called for Greece to reinstate the death penalty specifically for migrants convicted of violent crimes.

New Research

• The April issue of International Migration addresses anthropological perspectives on migration policy. In particular, an article by Jason de León on the Alien Transfer Exit Programme (ATEP) explores the health risks of the ATEP policy, whereby undocumented migrants were deported to places far from their initial point of entry with the hope of deterring future crossing attempts.

Prepared by Rachel Stonecipher and Nolan Kline

Any effort at comprehensive immigration reform must also address the health care needs of millions of immigrants with long-standing ties to this country. Absent such reform, immigrants needing ongoing medical care will remain vulnerable to the unethical practice of de facto deportation by hospitals, which is fueled by a lack of government reimbursement or oversight of international discharges.

In fact, a recent study from the Center for Social Justice and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest cites hundreds of cases of forced or coerced medical deportations. Acting alone or in concert with private transportation companies, as my colleagues and I report, hospitals are functioning as unauthorized immigration officers and engaging in de facto deportation of seriously ill or injured immigrant patients directly from their hospital beds to their native countries.

The coerced repatriation and subsequent death of Marlene, a young longtime U.S. resident from Mexico, illustrates the perilous outcomes that all too often occur when hospitals engage in medical repatriation. Marlene was brought to the U.S. when she was one year old, and by the time she was nineteen, she dreamed of becoming a police officer and serving on the SWAT team. But just two months after her high school graduation, a family acquaintance entered her home and shot her in the head.

Marlene was rushed to a public hospital in Arizona. Upon arrival at the hospital, Marlene was admitted and initially “stabilized” by doctors. But after learning that she was undocumented, the hospital began pressuring Marlene’s relatives to agree to repatriation. The hospital’s pressure persisted as the family attempted to find any avenue of assistance. Meanwhile, Marlene developed an intestinal infection, severe fever, and pneumonia, and suffered a heart attack.

The family ultimately succumbed to the hospital’s pressure and agreed to her transfer, but still asked their attorney to investigate any possible relief that might allow Marlene to stay in the U.S. One possibility was a U Visa which, if granted, would have afforded Marlene lawful immigration status in exchange for her willingness to assist in the investigation of the crime. The hospital, however, would not delay Marlene’s transfer, and the doctors at the hospital declared her stable and able to travel. At 9:00 AM on August 10, 2010, Marlene was wheeled out a back entrance of the hospital and taken to Mexico. Upon her arrival, she was diagnosed with septicemia, pneumonia, and meningitis. At 5:05 AM on August 11, 2010, Marlene died.

Thanks to the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, someone in Marlene’s situation today might well qualify for employment authorization for two years. The DACA program provides a desperately needed first step towards providing lawful status to the millions of undocumented immigrants who have long-standing ties to this country. Yet even for those fortunate enough to qualify for DACA, the Administration acted quickly to explicitly exclude them for health care coverage. On August 28, 2013, the Administration changed its policies to assure that DACA grantees would be excluded from purchasing health insurance under the new health care laws. This failure to address the health needs of even the most sympathetic group of young immigrants is emblematic of a regime that must be reformed from both an immigration and a health perspective.

Our research findings lead us to a number of recommendations that merit immediate consideration at the national and state levels. In the short term, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) could do more to regulate trans-border hospital discharges. For example, DHHS should immediately promulgate regulations that prohibit and impose sanctions on any hospital that performs an involuntary repatriation. It should also develop a process by which hospitals must document and report “international patient transfers.”  Finally, it should develop an auditing process through which DHHS can monitor compliance with such rules and regulations.

The Department of State should also implement a formal procedure for verifying international medical transfers with receiving hospitals before travel documents are issued. Hospitals must confirm (in cooperation with foreign consulates) that destination hospitals can provide the necessary long-term care before a transfer is deemed viable. Hospitals should also establish protocols to ensure that patients’ consent to international transfers is informed through disclosure of potential immigration consequences. Finally, hospitals should train hospital social workers and advocates in the special issues of working with immigrants, both documented and undocumented.

On a state level, states should repeal any bars to funding for means-tested and long-term medical care based on immigration status, and each should establish a fund for long-term care for catastrophically injured immigrants. States should also amend legislation to allow a broader basis for Permanently Residing under Color of Law (PRUCOL) eligibility for Medicaid.

Longer-term change, however, will need to come from reconceptualizing the “value” of immigrants and the need to guarantee the basic human dignity of all persons regardless of immigration status. If comprehensive immigration reform is to create a meaningful change, it will need to include immigrants in health care reimbursement schemes. Denying basic health care rights to immigrants endangers a particularly vulnerable population and poses a public health threat to everyone. Human rights norms require the U.S. to step in and regulate international patient discharges rather than turning a blind eye to the actions of hospitals and private actors.

Lori A. Nessel, J.D. is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law. She has written scholarly articles analyzing medical repatriation from a human rights perspective, especially in the context of workers’ rights. Her areas of expertise include immigration, human rights, and the intersection of labor and immigration laws. She regularly teaches Immigration and Naturalization Law and the Immigrants’ Rights/International Human Rights Clinic, and she has also taught International Human Rights Law and Gender and the Law and designed human rights programs in Haiti and Guatemala. At the Immigrants’ Rights/International Human Rights Clinic, she supervises litigation in asylum and relief from removal cases as well as litigation, advocacy and reporting on human rights issues.   

Cite this:

Nessel, Lori. 2013. “Immigration Reform and Health Care: Leaving the Undocumented in the Breach.” Accessed [date] at http://wp.me/pIK8x-zv.

• In a New York Times letter to the editor, Wayne Cornelius argued that no further border enforcement will play a role in deterring potential migrants to the U.S., aiming to nullify claims that “border security” is required prior to immigration reform. A NYT op-ed by Michael Dear addressed the harms to both people and the environment already being caused by the border wall.

• For the New York Times Lens project, photographer John Moore captured pictures of individuals awaiting or having just experienced deportation from the U.S.

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement released information on the release of 2,228 undocumented immigrants from detention in response to the sequester, a choice that drew criticism from Republican lawmakers but, for others, signaled the arbitrariness of detention.

Current Issues in U.S. Immigration Reform:

• The eight Senators authoring a bipartisan plan for immigration reform released early details on a path to legal status for undocumented residents, marking new agreement on this previously contentious measure. Provoking a different controversy, they revealed that they are considering a heavy reduction in the number of family visas available to relatives of U.S. citizens, in exchange for an easier path for highly skilled workers.

• Human Rights First urged Congress to consider detention reform in talks on comprehensive immigration legislation.

• Lobbying in immigration reform is dominated by corrections companies, seeking stricter penalties for immigrants, and tech companies, seeking more visas for highly skilled workers.

• The California Endowment, a statewide health-care foundation, launched a television campaign to push for the inclusion of undocumented immigrants in coming health reforms.

• The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) sent a letter to President Obama and several congresspeople urging them to improve access to affordable health care as part of immigration reform.

• More than in past immigration reform efforts, U.S. citizen friends and family members of undocumented immigrants are organizing with them to support substantive reforms.

International News

• The number of Syrian refugees increased 10 percent in one week amidst a continuing aid shortage, prompting the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to call on governments to create special funds to aid the refugees and their host countries.

• Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International criticized the treatment Syrian refugees are receiving in Greece, including police brutality and detention.

• In Australia, medical transfers of asylum seekers from the offshore Manus Island detention center revived calls for investigation of the medical treatment standards in offshore facilities.

New Blog

The Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS) at University of California at San Diego has launched a new blog that will provide ongoing analysis of the debates over comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and the likeliness of its passage. The first analysis by Tom Wong predicts voting trends for a CIR plan that includes a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. The second contribution by Wayne Cornelius addresses the connection between border enforcement and the passage of CIR.

Prepared by Rachel Stonecipher 

• As conversation about immigration reform continues in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, generally agree that undocumented immigrants granted provisional legal status should not be granted access to Medicaid or insurance subsidies.  This viewpoint, however, may contrast with the majority of lawmakers’ constituents.
• Neither the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program nor the Affordable Care Act offer any possibility for undocumented immigrants or DACA approved youth to access subsidized health services.
• A recent editorial about Arizona’s attempt to criminalize day laboring notes how some immigration laws undermine principles of free speech.
• North Carolina will begin giving driver’s licenses to immigrants who received work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.  Unlike other licenses, DACA approved drivers will receive licenses with a red stripe reading “No Lawful Status.”
• The recent arrest of an immigrant rights activist in Tucson highlights some of the troubling affects of Arizona law SB 1070.
• The Obama administration continues to develop its own version of immigration reform.
• Some immigrant rights groups are expressing concerns over Florida Atlantic University’s proposed stadium that will bear the name of GEO Group, a private prison company that profits off of detaining undocumented immigrants.
• Due to the federal budget sequester, federal immigration authorities have released numerous detained immigrants as a money saving effort. The sequester has also brought attention to the enormous cost of detaining immigrants, and how few detainees have been charged with committing a violent crime.
• Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed support for immigration reform, stating that there is a need to address problems in the United State’s immigration system.
• The AFL-CIO union has publically supported immigration reform, announcing its position at press conferences in cities such as Atlanta and Orlando.

International News:

• In Tanzania, 42 undocumented immigrants, 32 of which were children, were arrested for entering the country illegally.

Other Blogs:

• The Curious Ostrich blog has developed an image demonstrating how immigration policies can affect immigrants’ health.

• Contrary to Obama administration policy, newly released records show that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year instructed its regional chiefs to arrest more, not fewer, minor criminals as opposed to felons, in order to meet its desired number of deportations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently obtained emails proving that ICE officials set deportation quotas.
• Experts question whether immigration reform would make previously undocumented immigrants eligible for the reforms included in the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
• Civil rights groups in Alabama sued the state in an effort to end its publication of a “black list” of the names of all undocumented immigrants arrested there.
• The United We Dream network, a group of young immigrants for immigration reform, will push the legislature for a seven-year path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. House Republicans are open to the idea of residency for this population, but not citizenship.
• Research published in JAMA Pediatrics by author Elizabeth Kennedy found that unaccompanied immigrant children in the U.S. receive inadequate mental health care compared with unaccompanied refugee children, often not receiving a mental health assessment.
• A February 4 Slate article notes that the U.S. has always had a functioning “guest worker system” comprised of both formal and informal work.
• Jose Antonio Vargas, a longtime reporter and advocate of undocumented immigrants’ rights (and an undocumented immigrant himself), reflected upon his upcoming Senate testimony on February 12.
• While the White House works on its own version of immigration reform, Senator Marco Rubio lambasts the Obama administration for this effort.
• In California, nearly a decade after implemented one of the harshest immigration laws in the country, Republican legislators are changing their rhetoric about immigration.

International News

• Russian police detained 271 migrants from Central Asia and the North Caucasus region in a February 9 raid on Muslim prayer rooms, in an effort police said was to break up networks of religious extremists plotting terrorist attacks.
• Greece’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, declared unconstitutional a law passed three years ago that allowed second-generation migrants to apply for citizenship and run for local elections, potentially stripping those rights from people who have already obtained citizenship under the law.
• British, Belgian, and French immigration authorities carried out coordinated raids on February 6 that were aimed at apprehending smugglers of migrants.

Report

The Regional Migration Study Group of the Migration Policy Institute published a new report titled, “Strengthening Health Systems in North and Central America: What Role for Migration?”

Prepared by Rachel Stonecipher and Nolan Kline

• On Tuesday, January 29^th, President Obama addressed a Las Vegas audience and declared a need for immigration reform. The full transcript of his address can be found at the New York Times website.

• Although the President’s proposed immigration plan may grant “provisional legal status” to many undocumented immigrants living in the United States, his plan bars undocumented immigrants who gain “provisional legal status” from Medicare, Medicaid, and from purchasing health insurance on the exchanges created through the affordable care act.

• Some hospitals have expressed opposition to prohibiting certain forms of health insurance to undocumented immigrants who later gain legal status.

• In Sacramento, the Mexican Consulate is finding ways for undocumented immigrants to receive medical treatment since they are prohibited from accessing publically-financed health service.

• Commenting on how healthcare and immigration policies are linked, a group of policymakers and consumer advocates consider how immigration reform may influence health care reform in California.

• Lawmakers in Vermont are considering including undocumented immigrants in the state’s single payer health care system.

• In a provocative New York Times op-ed, Mae M. Ngai suggests that the current visa system in the United States encourages unauthorized immigration.

• In an effort to attract Latino voters, a conservative political group has urged Republican politicians to stop using the words “illegal,” “alien,” and the term “anchor babies,” when talking about undocumented immigrants.

• Anthropologist Robin Reineke’s work brings to light the dangers associated with crossing the Sonoran Desert while migrating on foot.

Reports: 

A new report by the organization Families for Freedom and the New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic describes hundreds of wrongful arrests by Border Patrol and over $1 million in cash and other incentives.

The student conference proceedings for the University College London’s Migration Research Unit are now available online.