President Biden on Thursday announced plans to give illegal immigrant Dreamers in the DACA program access to Obamacare, saying they deserved the same right to health care as Americans.
The proposed regulation would make DACA recipients eligible for Medicaid if they meet the low-income threshold. It would also allow them to buy insurance on Obamacare’s exchanges.
Mr. Biden said in a video message that health care is an American right and that those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have earned the chance to share that right.
“They’re American in every way except on paper,” he said.
Mr. Biden is battling major immigration headwinds, with record numbers arriving at the border over the past two years. The move to boost Dreamers, the most sympathetic figures in the immigration debate, could help the president refocus on more friendly territory.
Expanding Obamacare could also help Mr. Biden mollify the Democrats’ left flank. Immigration advocates have complained in recent months that the president has been reverting to Trump-style policies to solve the unprecedented chaos at the border.
Immigration rights advocates vociferously cheered the president’s announcement for Dreamers.
“This change is welcomed news for thousands of immigrants, especially undocumented communities, who delay or go without needed care because of the limited access to health care coverage options. This is also a signal that the Biden-Harris administration is doing what’s right for the immigrant community,” said Nathalie Rayes, president of the Latino Victory Project.
Mr. Biden’s proposal reverses a decision made by the Obama administration, which created DACA in 2012. Officials at the time figured that granting access to Obamacare was a step too far for illegal immigrants.
Mr. Biden was vice president at that time.
A decade on, Obamacare is more entrenched — and so are immigrants under DACA’s protection. Dreamers have become involved in their communities and are emerging as a potent political force.
To qualify for DACA, immigrants had to be younger than 16 when they entered the U.S. and had to have arrived by 2007. Most of them were brought by parents, but others came alone as unaccompanied minors.
Roughly 580,000 illegal immigrants are protected by DACA, meaning they are not to be deported. In reality, few were in danger of deportation anyway. The real benefit of DACA is a work permit and access to benefits such as tax credits and housing assistance.
Now they can add health care assistance to the list.
The Health and Human Services Department said 34% of DACA recipients don’t have health insurance coverage.
The others have insurance through company-provided plans or have purchased it on the open market.
Some states have expanded their programs, and roughly half fund prenatal care for illegal immigrants.
DACA recipients are still considered illegal immigrants, though they have a lawful presence through the program.
Other immigrants in that position — including the hundreds of thousands of recent border arrivals who have been “paroled” into the country — do have access to Obamacare benefits such as insurance on the exchanges. So do refugees and those granted asylum.
That left DACA as an odd outlier.
Mr. Biden announced his latest DACA policy as the fate of the overall program remained tenuous.
A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the program was illegal from the start. That matter is still winding its way through the courts. Those with DACA status can remain in the program, but no first-time applications are being approved.
The Biden administration, in the meantime, has issued a regulation rather than a guidance memo to enshrine DACA into policy.
The judge in Texas is trying to figure out how the regulation affects his 2021 ruling.
Granting DACA recipients some form of permanent status has widespread support on Capitol Hill, but agreement breaks down beyond that. Republicans argue for a narrowly drawn amnesty coupled with stiffer immigration controls, but Democrats have eschewed stricter border security and pressed for a broad amnesty that goes well beyond Dreamers.
In his announcement Thursday, Mr. Biden renewed his call for Congress to take up the issue and grant DACA recipients full citizenship rights.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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