Should undocumented migrants receive free health insurance?
Fact Box
- The number of border encounters and apprehensions under President Trump’s first term reached 851,508. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide from 2021-2024. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has estimated that between 11 million and 22 million undocumented immigrants are living in the US.
- Policies granting undocumented migrants access to social benefits vary significantly from state to state. California and New York offer access to healthcare, food assistance, and other social services. Fifty percent of undocumented immigrant adults are medically insured through tax-payer health care.
- The Biden-Harris administration announced in April 2023 “a plan to expand health coverage for DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] recipients” (DACA). Over a year later, 15 states sued to block these efforts, saying, “Subsidized health insurance…is a valuable public benefit that encourages unlawfully present alien beneficiaries to remain in the United States.”
- A November 2023 Data for Progress poll found that 59% of immigrants support allowing undocumented immigrants to sign up for government-sponsored health insurance, with 69% of US-born adults opposing.
Luis (No)
The US has been extremely sympathetic to immigrants. Yet, providing free healthcare to those who have illegally entered the US is wrong. Granting this type of benefit to illegal immigrants would set a concerning legal precedent that undermines efforts to control borders and enforce immigration laws. Granting healthcare benefits to illegal aliens would detrimentally affect the country, as it encourages more immigrants to enter illegally, which could eventually overwhelm the system.
Illegal immigrants shouldn’t receive free health insurance as its cost would be so massive that it will burden and have a negative economic impact on the US. Allowing immigrants to access America's limited healthcare resources has already financially strained our hospitals, exasperating the public healthcare systems and eventually leading to a severe service reduction for legal residents and other societal burdens.
Illegally-crossed migrants who receive taxpayer-funded healthcare or insurance is simply unfair and unjust, considering the number of lawful residents who don’t even have healthcare and experience significant stress because of it. Likewise, because of America's welfare benefits, illegal immigration has been incentivized. It has increased so much that many legal US citizens have been subjected to dangerously long hospital wait times due to large influxes of unlawful migrants taking those limited resources. Moreover, many healthcare workers experienced being trapped and unable to quit due to the high demand.
Finally, providing free healthcare to illegal aliens is one of the worst ways to undermine the country’s rule of law, as authorities would reward those who decided to enter the United States in an illegal manner. While some laws can be flexible in certain circumstances, those regarding illegal immigration should consistently be enforced. Governments are obligated to provide for their legal citizens over foreign nationals—it's as simple as that.
Andrew (Yes)
Those wanting to debate whether undocumented immigrants are deserving of free healthcare are using the question as a foil to distract from the real issue: that all people should have access to free healthcare. In the wealthiest and most powerful society that has ever existed on earth, there is simply no reason that everyone, regardless of immigration status, can’t have access to free health care. It’s time we recognize that free healthcare for all people is not only possible in America but would be highly beneficial to our economy and society. In our fight to join the seventy-three other nations on earth with free health care, we must recognize the humanity of undocumented individuals and include them in our struggle.
Like it or not, undocumented immigrants are a part of society. Keeping all sectors of our society healthy helps to ensure all people, documented or not, aren't at risk of disease. By creating barriers to care for certain groups, we run the risk of creating pockets of infection and other health problems that can then spread through the wider society.
When it comes down to it, it’s overall less expensive to offer care to undocumented people. Even those opposing free healthcare to undocumented migrants—whom critics view as lacking the basic humanity to want to ease another’s suffering—must admit that early interventions are less costly than emergency room visits. When undocumented people are unable to access care, problems that are often easily remedied at low cost can fester into emergency room visits, which must be paid for out of hospital profits or with assistance from the government.
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