NEW YORK - Undocumented immigrants aren't covered under the Affordable Care Act, leaving about 457,000 people ineligible for coverage in New York alone.

A new report from the Community Service Society, which advocates for impoverished New Yorkers, outlines what it calls "practical and affordable" ways to close the coverage gap.

The group's vice president of health initiatives, Elisabeth Benjamin, says covering more immigrants, even under the most expensive proposal, would cost less than one-half of one percent of the state's Medicaid budget.

"The extension of the 'Essential Plan,' which provides health coverage to people up to 200 percent of poverty. There would be 241,000 eligible New Yorker's eligible," says Benjamin. "We think 111,000 would potentially join and it would cost $462 million a year."

Benjamin adds people who are uninsured are more vulnerable to illness, death and economic ruin from expensive medical costs. She says those who have health coverage end up sharing the cost burden, through higher taxes, medical bills and insurance costs.

More importantly, says Benjamin, her group believes insuring people no matter what their immigration status is the right thing to do.

"We have lots of new Americans in New York State," says Benjamin. "They contribute substantially in taxes and in providing us great workers and so, it's sort of a matter of justice. It's only fair to treat our immigrant residents equally as other residents."

She notes under the Affordable Care Act, federal funding to offset hospital costs for the uninsured will gradually be reduced starting in 2017, so the state needs to plan for that. She says New York receives more of this funding than any other state.


get more stories like this via email

A new internship program is looking to investigate health disparities among Massachusetts' immigrant population.

The Immigrant Scholar Internship Program at the Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research is designed to have scholars examine the health of immigrants.

According to a 2021 report, residents in the city of Chelsea, 45% of whom are foreign born, said fear of immigration repercussions prevented them from seeking critical health care.

Jessica Santos, director of the Zallman Center, said in developing the program, she found pushback in wanting to pay the interns a decent wage, with many believing the experience alone would be more valuable.

"Paying interns gives folks who are in underrepresented communities and less elite spaces the ability to actually do an internship," Santos explained. "When I was a professor, I don't know how many of my students would come to me and say I literally cannot afford to do an internship this summer; I just need to work."

One thing she wants to change for the future of the program is to get students from different schools across the state. Rather than focusing on more elite schools, she wants to cast a wide net across schools for all immigrant scholars interested in being a part of the program.

Danielle Chun, strategy and partnership manager at the Zallman Center, said some of the training the interns go through revolves around research methods and means of evaluation. There are specific overviews and methodology training for what an intern might be working on.

She directly supervises the interns and has found while she has helped shape them, they have helped shape the program. One of her favorite moments is watching each cohort of interns take the reins on a project.

"I really love seeing how, even in such a short time, how they really flourish," Chun recounted. "And how they really take ownership of the projects they're working on. In the beginning there's a lot of checking in with me to make sure that what they're doing is right, and as they grow more comfortable with us, and as we delegate more to them and provide leadership opportunities for them to take."

Chun noted her personal goal for the interns is for them to leave the program with something tangible such as a report or presentation, documenting the research project. Although interns enter the program from different levels of academia and different fields of study, she hopes they learn about the cross-section of their fields of study and immigrant health.

People in northwest Washington are holding a vigil at Bellingham City Hall for an immigrant farmworker who died five years ago, and calling for a resource center to help other residents.

Honesto Silva Ibarra died in 2017 while working in triple-digit heat. A state investigation of Ibarra's death found the farm where he worked violated requirements for regular breaks.

Tara Villalba, a member of the Immigration Advisory Board, which is asking the city to fund an Immigrant Resource Center, lives in the community and said it is important to have a place where people can use their first language and also build up community in their new homes.

"Access to resources is so full of barriers, especially for new immigrants, when English is not your first language, when you don't know where you're going to need to go to get a driver's license, how are you going to register to vote," Villalba outlined. "People who have lived here a long time, that's knowledge they take for granted."

One in 10 residents of Whatcom County was born outside the U.S., or about 24,000 people, but only about half are naturalized citizens, according to the Immigrant Resource Center proposal to the City of Bellingham.

Lelo Juarez, a member of the Immigration Advisory Board and a farmworker, sees Ibarra as a victim of climate change, which disproportionately affects farm laborers who work outdoors. He believes a resource center could be a place where people come with concerns about their working conditions.

"If a company's not following the rules to keep our workers safe, they can come in and tell us, and we can go and see what we can do," Juarez explained. "We really need this."

On June 1, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries put temporary rules in place, providing increased protections for farmworkers when temperatures are at or above 89 degrees.

To support the campaign for a resource center, people in Whatcom County are folding 10,000 origami butterflies. The campaign is called "migration makes us stronger," and Villalba said butterflies signify migration is natural.

This weekend is also the 77th Hiroshima bombing anniversary. Villalba pointed out the idea to fold butterflies came from descendants of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, who, in recent years, have folded cranes for immigrant families separated and detained at the southern border.

"They said that as a Japanese American community, they cannot allow for this to happen again," Villalba recounted. "And I thought, as an immigrant, that was super powerful."

Stigma around mental health and a lack of resources available in Spanish means many individuals in North Carolina's Latino community are going without needed resources.

Camino Health Center wants to change the situation, and is launching an effort to spread the word about Spanish-speaking therapists and counselors available to residents in the Charlotte region.

Dr. Carolina Benitez, director of the Behavioral Health Clinic at Camino Health Center, said language is the number one barrier Latino residents face.

"I know that the number of therapists who can speak Spanish will are fully bilingual is small," Benitez observed. "That is actually a great need within this community and actually throughout the state."

Research shows although the nation's Hispanic population is increasing, the number of mental-health facilities offering treatment in Spanish declined by more than 17% between 2014 and 2019, across 44 states.

North Carolina has seen its Latino population soar over the past decade to more than one million, which includes individuals born in the U.S. and immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Benitez added financial and other obstacles often accompanying immigration to the U.S. can contribute to depression and anxiety in this population.

"Issues with documentation status will affect transportation needs (and) will also affect health access to health insurance, sustainable work," Benitez outlined.

She encouraged residents to seek help by contacting the center at 704-596-5606.

"We will be happy to connect them with a social navigator who can help them understand more about our services, understand more about the situation that they're in and the resources that are available to them," Benitez explained.

According to the Hispanic Research Center, more than one third of Latino families have experienced a mental-health disorder, including depression, anxiety, substance misuse or PTSD.

Support for the mental-health awareness campaign comes from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and the American Heart Association.