Fearing Immigration-Related Consequences, Many Families Forgo Basic Health and Nutrition Services
A growing number of low-income families and children are going without nutrition and health services due to immigration-related fears, health providers are warning, with potential immediate and long-term impacts on children's health.
Agencies overseeing the WIC nutrition program for low-income women, infants, and children in at least 18 states report enrollment declines of up to 20 percent,
Forgoing the vital support that WIC (the
Some families are also backing out of Medicaid,
For more than a century, a person seeking to enter
After the Administration issues the rule, it won't take effect until after a public comment period and the government's review of comments, which will take a number of months. Nevertheless, there are already numerous reports of people dropping out of benefit programs such as WIC, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), and Medicaid due to fear that receiving such benefits now will cause them to fail a future public charge determination and thereby ruin their families' chances of staying (or reuniting) in
The reported public charge policy, along with the Administration's stepped-up immigration arrests and other Administration actions targeting immigrants, has created an atmosphere of fear among immigrant families, with harmful consequences for their children and communities. "In the long term," Falusi said, "I think what we'll see then in the health-care system is kids who are sicker because they didn't have that access to as many healthy foods if they were no longer on WIC and SNAP; we'll [also] see kids and families who wait longer to see doctors."
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