Biden grants Obamacare access to illegal immigrant Dreamers in DACA program


People rally outside the Capitol in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), during a demonstration on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) more >


Print By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Thursday, April 13, 2023


President Biden on Thursday gave illegal immigrant Dreamers in the DACA program access to Obamacare, saying they deserved the same right to health care as Americans.


The move opens access to Medicaid, for those whose incomes qualify, and to buying insurance on Obamacare’s exchanges.



Mr. Biden, in a video message, said those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program earned the right.


“They’re American in every way except on paper,” he said.


To qualify for DACA, immigrants had to be under 16 when they arrived and had to have come by 2007. That usually means they were brought by parents, but sometimes they came alone as unaccompanied minors.


Nearly 700,000 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 to DACA is a work permit and access to some benefits such as tax credits and housing assistance.


Mr. Biden on Thursday renewed his call for Congress to grant Dreamers full citizenship rights.


In the meantime, he said, granting them access to Obamacare will help them deepen their roots here.


Some states have expanded their own programs to include illegal immigrants. Roughly half the states let pregnant illegal immigrants get prenatal care under state-funded programs, for example.


But federal policy had been to deny DACA recipients access to Obamacare.
DACA recipients can get insurance through their jobs, or purchase it on their own, but were ineligible to buy plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges.


A 2018 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation said roughly 40% of DACA recipients lacked health insurance coverage. That was slightly better than the broader illegal immigrant population.


DACA has long stood out as a curious exception.


Those here under the program are still considered illegal immigrants without lawful status, though they do have lawful presence.


Other migrants 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 buying insurance on the exchanges.


Mr. Biden’s new Obamacare policy comes as the fate of the overall DACA program remains tenuous.


A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the program, created in 2012, was illegal from the start. That matter is still winding its way through the courts, but in the meantime those already holding DACA status can remain in the program, but no first-time applications are being approved.


The Biden administration, meanwhile, has issued regulations trying to enshrine DACA in policy. Previously it was a guidance memo.


The judge in Texas is trying to figure out how the new regulation affects his 2021 ruling.

There is widespread support on Capitol Hill for granting DACA recipients some form of permanent status. But things break down beyond that question.

Republicans argue for a narrowly drawn amnesty coupled with stiffer immigration controls, while Democrats have eschewed stiffer border security and pressed for a broad amnesty that goes well beyond Dreamers.

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