Borders of Care
Immigrants, Migrants, and the Fight for Health Care in the United States
9780226820866
9780226820842
9780226820859
Borders of Care
Immigrants, Migrants, and the Fight for Health Care in the United States
Probes the relationship between the immigration and health care systems in the United States.
For the roughly ten million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, federal health care coverage is out of reach. Barred from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, most rely on hospital emergency rooms when they get sick, or clinics that don’t inquire about immigration status. Further obstacles to health care, including discrimination and the fear of deportation, mean that immigrants, undocumented or not, seek and receive less medical attention than any other population in the country. Yet immigrants haven’t always been ostracized from health care in the United States—providers and activists have for over a century worked to make medical services available to newcomers and migrants, including, at times, the undocumented.
Drawing together stories from diverse communities from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Borders of Care examines how health care in the United States has both included and excluded immigrants. Beatrix Hoffman analyzes both the health and immigration systems, adding to our understanding of why these structures, and the policies that support them, have resisted reform. Moreover, she shows that immigrants, often scapegoated as burdens on the healthcare system, have strengthened it through their responses to systemic exclusion. By creating hospitals and clinics, serving as practitioners, fighting for safer workplaces, filing lawsuits, organizing and protesting, immigrants and migrants have improved medical access for everybody and advanced the idea of health care as a universal right. As accessible as it is authoritative, Hoffman’s survey could not be more timely.
For the roughly ten million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, federal health care coverage is out of reach. Barred from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, most rely on hospital emergency rooms when they get sick, or clinics that don’t inquire about immigration status. Further obstacles to health care, including discrimination and the fear of deportation, mean that immigrants, undocumented or not, seek and receive less medical attention than any other population in the country. Yet immigrants haven’t always been ostracized from health care in the United States—providers and activists have for over a century worked to make medical services available to newcomers and migrants, including, at times, the undocumented.
Drawing together stories from diverse communities from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Borders of Care examines how health care in the United States has both included and excluded immigrants. Beatrix Hoffman analyzes both the health and immigration systems, adding to our understanding of why these structures, and the policies that support them, have resisted reform. Moreover, she shows that immigrants, often scapegoated as burdens on the healthcare system, have strengthened it through their responses to systemic exclusion. By creating hospitals and clinics, serving as practitioners, fighting for safer workplaces, filing lawsuits, organizing and protesting, immigrants and migrants have improved medical access for everybody and advanced the idea of health care as a universal right. As accessible as it is authoritative, Hoffman’s survey could not be more timely.
280 pages | 24 halftones | 6 x 9 | © 2025
History: American History
Political Science: Public Policy
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction: Two Broken Systems
1. Immigrant Health Threats, Immigrant Health Action
2. Health Care in the Era of Restriction and Expulsion
3. Insuring, Exploiting, and Caring for Migrants
4. From Access to Rights
5. Health Politics as Immigration Politics
6. Violence against Health
7. Undocumented, Uninsured, Unafraid
Epilogue: From Pandemic to Power
Acknowledgments
Archives Consulted
Notes
Index
1. Immigrant Health Threats, Immigrant Health Action
2. Health Care in the Era of Restriction and Expulsion
3. Insuring, Exploiting, and Caring for Migrants
4. From Access to Rights
5. Health Politics as Immigration Politics
6. Violence against Health
7. Undocumented, Uninsured, Unafraid
Epilogue: From Pandemic to Power
Acknowledgments
Archives Consulted
Notes
Index