A Decade of State Immigrant Rights Victories: Moving Toward Health Care and Economic Justice for All

In the decade following the 2012 elections, and culminating in 2022, immigrants and allies have won significant victories in states across the country. These inclusive state policies are a result of years of organizing and a growing advocacy infrastructure that tackles issues affecting low-income communities of color. State and local officials increasingly recognize that the health and well-being of their residents is interconnected and have taken steps to address longstanding disparities in access to health care and economic support.In 2022, states made remarkable progress toward the goal of providing health care for all by extending coverage to seniors, children, pregnant people, and other residents regardless of their immigration status. In response to effective organizing, states also improved access to higher education and professional licenses, expanded access to driver's licenses, protected workers' rights, strengthened consumer privacy, and invested in access to counsel for immigrants. States extended tax credits to residents who use Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) and offered cash assistance to workers who were excluded from federal pandemic relief and unemployment insurance

Overview of Immigrant Eligibility for Federal Programs

The major federal public benefits programs have long excluded some non–U.S. citizens from eligibility for assistance. Programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), nonemergency Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and its precursor, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), were largely unavailable to undocumented immigrants and people in the United States on temporary visas.However, the 1996 federal welfare and immigration laws introduced an unprecedented era of restrictionism. Prior to the enactment of these laws, lawful permanent residents of the U.S. generally were eligible for assistance in a manner similar to U.S. citizens. Once the laws were implemented, most lawfully residing immigrants were barred from receiving assistance under the major federal benefits programs for five years or longer.Even where eligibility for immigrants was preserved by the 1996 laws or restored by subsequent legislation, many immigrant families hesitate to enroll in critical health care, job-training, nutrition, and cash assistance programs due to fear and confusion caused by the laws' complexity and other intimidating factors. As a result, the participation of immigrants in public benefits programs decreased sharply after passage of the 1996 laws, causing severe hardship for many low-income immigrant families who lacked the support available to other low-income families.Efforts to address the chilling effects and confusion have continued since that time. The Trump administration's exclusionary policies compounded the problem, making it even more difficult to ensure that eligible immigrants and their family members would secure services.This article focuses on eligibility and other rules governing immigrants' access to federal public benefits programs. Many states have attempted to fill some of the gaps in noncitizen coverage resulting from the 1996 laws, either by electing federal options to cover more eligible noncitizens or by spending state funds to cover at least some of the immigrants who are ineligible for federally funded services.In determining an immigrant's eligibility for benefits, it is necessary to understand the federal rules as well as the rules of the state in which an immigrant resides. Updates on federal and state rules are available on NILC's website

Inclusive Policies Advance Dramatically in the States: Immigrants' Access to Driver's Licenses, Higher Education, Workers' Rights, and Community Policing

As Congress debated federal immigration reform this year, states led the way by adopting policies designed to integrate immigrants more fully in their communities. In the wake of the 2012 elections, with Latino and Asian voters participating in record numbers,1 the 2013 state legislative sessions witnessed a significant increase in pro-immigrant activity. Issues that had been dormant or had moved in a restrictive direction for years, such as expanding access to driver's licenses, gained considerable traction, along with measures improving access to education and workers' rights for immigrants.This report summarizes the activity on immigrant issues that took place during the states' 2013 legislative sessions, as well as efforts to improve access to services for immigrant youth

Immigrant Families: Welfare Reform Restricts Programs that Support Working Families

A key goal of the 1996 welfare law is to provide incentives and support that will help low-income people join the workforce, and become financially secure. Yet for many working-poor immigrant families, the law has had the opposite effect. It has restricted their eligibility for programs that can promote upward mobility, such as health care coverage, food stamps, and other safety-net programs of special importance to low-wage, working families. This paper provides a statistical portrait of changes in well being among immigrants and their children, examples of state strategies, and implications of these changes for federal policy

State Immigrant Rights Highlights 2021: Advancing Community Health and Well-Being

This report highlights the immigrant inclusive laws enacted in 2021, as well as some pending bills and campaigns. During this time, states adopted policies improving access to health care, higher education, and professional licenses for immigrants; protecting the rights of workers and tenants; investing in access to counsel; strengthening driver and consumer privacy; and limiting local entanglement in federal immigration enforcement efforts.As Congress considers options for providing a pathway to permanent status or temporary relief to millions of immigrants in the U.S., states and localities have taken significant action to improve the lives of their community members, regardless of their immigration status. In response to effective local organizing, almost half the states adopted immigrant-inclusive laws and policies in 2021

Pertussis resurgence in Toronto, Canada: a population-based study including test-incidence feedback modeling

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pertussis continues to challenge medical professionals; recently described increases in incidence may be due to age-cohort effects, vaccine effectiveness, or changes in testing patterns. Toronto, Canada has recently experienced increases in pertussis incidence, and provides an ideal jurisdiction for evaluating pertussis epidemiology due to centralized testing. We evaluated pertussis trends in Toronto using all available specimen data, which allowed us to control for changing testing patterns and practices.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data included all pertussis culture and PCR test records for Greater Toronto from 1993 to 2007. We estimated incidence trends using Poisson regression models; complex relationships between disease incidence and test submission were explored with vector autoregressive models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From 1993 to 2007, 26988 specimens were submitted for testing; 2545 (9.4%) were positive. Pertussis incidence was 2 per 100,000 from 1993 to 2004 and increased to 10 per 100,000 from 2005-2007, with a concomitant 6-fold surge in test specimen submissions after the introduction of a new, more sensitive PCR assay. The relative change in incidence was less marked after adjustment for testing volumes. Bidirectional feedbacks between test positivity and test submissions were identified.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Toronto's recent surge in pertussis reflects a true increase in local disease activity; the apparent size of the outbreak has likely been magnified by increasing use of pertussis testing by clinicians, and by improved test sensitivity since 2005. These findings may be applicable to changes in pertussis epidemiology that have been noted elsewhere in North America.</p

Military Aid to Guatemala: The Failure of U.S. Human Rights Legislation

In the wake of the war in Indochina, U.S. citizens began to reassess their country\u27s role in world affairs. Troubled by their own government\u27s violence, they questioned its support of violent governments elsewhere. Too frequently, the United States was providing aid to governments that violated fundamental human rights. In the 1970s, Congress enacted several statutes designed to curtail this practice; by 1980, a comprehensive scheme of human rights legislation was in force. This legislation prohibited military sales and assistance, development assistance, and favorable votes for certain multilateral loans to countries whose governments engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. \u27 In addition, Congress enacted human rights legislation directed at specific countries