Hey #Ronation,
Life for DREAMers varies dramatically depending on which state they live in. One example – health care benefits. In August 2012, a decision was made to disqualify these young, undocumented immigrants from receiving health coverage under Obamacare. Health and Human Services chief Sylvia Burwell has called for extending Obamacare benefits to DREAMers. “DREAMers are not able to be covered in the marketplace. And this is an issue that I think is more than a health care issue — it is an immigration issue” Burwell said.
Hispanic civil rights groups have said they didn’t understand why the administration would try to integrate undocumented youth through immigration relief, but then shut them out of the new health care system entirely.
This decision means the 1.7 million immigrants the Pew Research Center estimated to be eligible for the program won’t be. States, however, could expand their Medicaid programs to grant DREAMers access to healthcare, but several states, including Texas and Florida that have large DREAMer populations, refuse to expand their Medicaid programs.
We are writing to the governors of these states –
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Mississippi
- Montana
- Nebraska
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
And our Call to Action this week is to ask you to sign that letter asking the governors of those states to expand their Medicaid programs to provide DREAMers healthcare coverage.
Let’s get immigration reform moving at the state level.
Yasmin Aslam
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