For months, a cloud of fear has hovered over the immigrant community in San Bernardino, California, making it hard for María González to do her job as a community health worker in this city where almost a quarter of residents are foreign-born.
It started building over the summer, fed by news of immigration raids across Southern California, Trump administration plans to share Medicaid data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the passage of state and federal restrictions on immigrant Medicaid eligibility. Then in November, the federal government released a new “public charge” proposal that, if enacted, could block certain immigrants from obtaining permanent legal residency if they or family members have used public benefits, including Medicaid.
Many of González’ clients and their children, often U.S. citizens, still qualify for California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, which provides health coverage to over 14 million residents with low incomes or disabilities. But increasingly, they don’t want to enroll or renew their coverage, she said.
“Many people don’t want to apply,” she said. “There are people who say they don’t even want to go outside and water their plants.”
An analysis by KFF Health News found that, from June to December, the latest month for which figures are available, almost 100,000 immigrants without legal status left Medi-Cal, representing about a quarter of all disenrollments in that time frame, even though this group makes up only about 11% of Medi-Cal enrollees.
It marks a reversal in a steady rise in enrollment among immigrants without legal status in California. Until July, sign-ups among this group had risen every month since the state opene …