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Immigration Reform: A Long Road to Citizenship and Insurance Coverage
In an article in the April issue of Health Affairs, Migration Policy Institute Senior Policy Analyst Randy Capps and Senior Vice President Michael Fix examine the key questions surrounding legalization and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With Congress poised to consider a major overhaul of US immigration laws and legalization for many of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants, how legalization affects implementation of the ACA is a key policy question. The article examines current coverage rates for unauthorized immigrants, eligibility for coverage under expansion of Medicaid, the distribution of costs of uncompensated care, and options for covering those who will remain uninsured under ACA.
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Critical Immigration, Health, and Education Policies Affecting Young Children of Immigrants
 A conference with leading experts in health, education, and immigration policy discussing public policies affecting the young children of immigrants. Click here for audio and video of the conference panels.
January 17, 2013
Young Children of Black Immigrants in America: Changing Flows, Changing Faces
Edited by Randy Capps and Michael Fix
The US child population is rapidly changing and diversifying, in large part because of immigration. Today, nearly one in four US children under age 18 is the child of an immigrant. While research has focused on the largest of these groups, far less academic attention has been paid to the changing Black child population, with the children of Black immigrants representing an increasing share of the US Black child population. This interdisciplinary volume, with chapters by leading researchers, examines the health, well-being, school readiness, and academic achievement of children in Black immigrant families, most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean. The volume explores the migration and settlement experiences of Black immigrants to the United States, focusing on contextual factors such as family circumstances, parenting behaviors, social supports, and school climate that influence outcomes during early childhood and the elementary and middle-school years. Its findings hold important policy implications for education, health care, child care, early childhood development, immigrant integration, and refugee assistance.
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Patterns and Predictors of School Readiness and Early Childhood Success among Young Children in Black Immigrant Families
By Danielle A. Crosby and Angel S. Dunbar
This report examines levels of school readiness among young children by race/ethnicity and nativity, helping fill a significant gap in knowledge about the early childhood experiences of young children in Black immigrant families. Using a nationally representative US birth-cohort study (the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort), the authors identify the contextual factors - such as family circumstances, parenting practices, and enrollment in center-based child care - that encourage early school success.
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Parenting Behavior, Health, and Cognitive Development among Children in Black Immigrant Families: Comparing the United States and the United Kingdom
By Margot Jackson
Racial disparities in child development in the United States are significant, with a particularly pronounced disadvantage among Black children. This report focuses on the development of children of Black immigrants, comparing against the outcomes for their peers in native-born and other immigrant families. The report also compares children in the United States to those in the United Kingdom, where there is a large Black immigrant population but a notably different policy context of reception.
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The 2012 Winners of MPI’s E Pluribus Unum Prizes for Exceptional Immigrant Integration Initiatives
MPI is pleased to announce the winners of its 2012 E Pluribus Unum Prizes: ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services), a Michigan-based Arab American organization that strengthens ties between immigrant and native-born communities; Building Skills Partnership, a California labor-business alliance that provides on-the-job English language and other classes for janitors; and Californians Together, a California education coalition that has achieved significant instructional reform for English language learners. Each was given a $50,000 award. The Prizes’ Corporate Leadership Award was given to Citi Community Development, which supports citizenship promotion for eligible legal immigrants and economic empowerment.
Press Release | Awards Event Program | ACCESS | Building Skills Partnership | Californians Together | Citi Community Development
Black and Immigrant: Exploring the Effects of Ethnicity and Foreign-Born Status on Infant Health
By Tiffany L. Green
The birth experiences and prenatal behaviors of Black immigrant mothers have received relatively little attention. This report compares prenatal behaviors and birth outcomes of Black immigrant mothers to those of other immigrant and US-born mothers, using federal vital statistics. It finds that Black immigrant mothers are less likely to give birth to preterm or low-birth-weight infants than US-born Black women, yet are more likely to experience these adverse birth outcomes than other groups of immigrant and US-born women.
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Immigrants and Health Care Reform: What’s Really at Stake?
By Randy Capps, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Michael Fix
Health care reform proposals under consideration in Congress that would exclude many legal immigrants from core benefits and impose new verification requirements would have important spillover consequences for taxpayers and other health care consumers. In a new report, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy offers the first-ever estimates of the size of uninsured immigrant populations in major immigrant-destination states, the number of immigrant workers covered by employer-provided plans, and the share of immigrants employed by small firms likely to be exempted from employer coverage mandates. The report, based on MPI analysis of Census Bureau data, also examines health coverage for immigrants by legal status, age, and poverty levels.
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Access to Health Care and Health
Insurance: Immigrants and Immigration Reform
By Leighton Ku and Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007
Access to Health Care after Immigration Reform – Practical
Considerations for Policymakers
By Adam Gurvitch
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007
Health
Insurance Coverage of Children in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families
By
Randy Capps, Genevieve M. Kenney, Michael Fix
Snapshot 3 of America’s Families, No. 12
Urban Institute, 2003
The Health and Well-Being of Young Children of Immigrants
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Jason Ost, Jane Reardon-Anderson,
and Jeffrey Passel
Urban Institute, February 2005 |
The
high costs of health care and the erosion of health insurance coverage
are two important long-term challenges that confront all Americans. But
these problems are especially acute for immigrants to the United
States, who have extremely low rates of health insurance coverage
and very poor access to health care services. Immigrants — particularly
those who have not yet naturalized into American citizenship — encounter
roadblocks that make it far more difficult to get either public or private
health insurance and to obtain adequate access to health care.