Washington, DC – The National Health Law Program (NHeLP) and a coalition of legal aid, health care, and immigrant-serving organizations filed an amicus brief urging the court to halt the federal government’s new data sharing policy between the Department of Health and Human Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The policy was adopted without public notice and comment and will deter millions of people, including lawfully present immigrants and U.S. citizens, from seeking the health care they are eligible to receive.
For more than a decade, families have relied on clear confidentiality protections when applying for Medicaid, CHIP, Marketplace coverage, and other health care programs. The new policy abandons that stability. It allows the government to share undefined, and potentially unlimited, categories of personal information with immigration enforcement, creating widespread fear of family separation, detainment, or deportation. The brief documents early evidence of a chilling effect, including pregnant people forgoing prenatal care, parents pulling U.S. citizen children off Medicaid, and individuals delaying life-saving treatment because they no longer trust that their information will remain confidential.
Families should never be forced to choose between seeing a doctor and risking immigration enforcement
“Families should never be forced to choose between seeing a doctor and risking immigration enforcement,” said Sarah Grusin, Senior Attorney at the National Health Law Program. “This policy is already scaring people away from prenatal care, from treatment for cancer and kidney disease, and from routine appointments for their children. The chilling effect is real, it is dangerous, and it will only worsen unless the court steps in.”
In addition to the fear and anxiety produced by the change, the amicus also noted the pernicious misuse of health care data, “The ICE Memo raises the specter that immigrants will be targeted because of their use of health care – whether it is because they have simply accessed public benefits, are high-utilizers of health care, or receive health care that is otherwise politically disfavored by this administration.”
The organizations are calling on the court to extend the preliminary injunction and restore the longstanding confidentiality protections immigrant families rely on to safely access health care.
Read amicus here.
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