Several states have joined President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts and are taking federal reporting requirements to immigration authorities a step further — by using their public health agencies as arms of enforcement.
North Carolina, in late April, became the latest member of a growing group of Republican-led states to require their public health agencies to flag recipients of Medicaid to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security if their legal status is in question.
It’s a trend health policy researchers expect to spread among GOP-controlled states eager to join Trump in the federal crackdown on Medicaid fraud and illegal immigration. Already, at least four states — Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, and Wyoming — have passed similar laws, and lawmakers in others, such as Oklahoma and Tennessee, are weighing measures. In those six states, Republicans hold a power trifecta — both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office.
“This is an issue that is very much on the political radar right now,” said Carmel Shachar, a health policy researcher at Harvard Law School.
More than 75 million people are enrolled in Medicaid, the federal and state-run public health program for people with disabilities and low incomes, or its related Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost coverage for people under 19. Immigrants without legal status are ineligible for Medicaid benefits, but a swath of noncitizens qualify, such as green-card holders, asylees, and refugees. A quarter of children in the U.S., most of them citizens, live with an immigrant.
Yet the new reporting laws add a layer of risk for immigrants seeking healthcare in the U.S., where mandates from the White House have used Medicaid data to help identify and deport people.
Some of the state laws apply only to health agencies, such as in North Carolina. But the bill headed to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s desk would be comprehensive, requiring all state agencies to report people …