Stratification by Immigration Status: Contradictory Exclusion and Inclusion after Health Care Reform
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2017
Keywords
immigration, deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA), undocumented immigrant, lawfully present, exclusion, inclusion, insurance subsidies, Affordable Care Act, Texas
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479897001.003.0002
Abstract
Heide Castañeda’s chapter highlights the fact that immigrant groups in the United States are not monolithic, but instead stratified by many chaotic bureaucratic categories. Using three case studies derived from longitudinal research in Texas, this chapter illustrates the unanticipated and contradictory effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by examining how immigration categories influenced eligibility and participation. The ACA explicitly excluded more than 11 million undocumented immigrants from coverage and distinguished between “qualified” and “non-qualified” immigrants among those who were considered “lawfully present.” This chapter illustrates the impacts of these exclusions and inclusions. We see how these distinctions produced ripple effects on U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families. In addition, the exclusion of youth holding deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) status—produced through an unusual case of administrative rollback—created a new pattern of formal disenfranchisement, while a loophole allowed some immigrants to qualify for insurance subsidies that U.S. citizens living in the same state could not.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Stratification by Immigration Status: Contradictory Exclusion and Inclusion after Health Care Reform, in J. M. Mulligan & h. Castaneda (Eds.), Unequal Coverage: The Experience of Health Care Reform in the United States, NYU Press, p. 37-58
Scholar Commons Citation
Castaneda, Heide, "Stratification by Immigration Status: Contradictory Exclusion and Inclusion after Health Care Reform" (2017). Anthropology Faculty Publications. 98.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/ant_facpub/98
