The Immigrant Health Care Narrative and What It Tells Us about the U.S. Health Care System

This article examines the political, legal, and popular discourse in favor of and against healthcare benefit restrictions for immigrants. The author explains how this discourse creates narratives of immigrants' character and relationship to the rest of society. These narratives influence our perception of immigrants and their effect on society, and this perception, in turn, seems to influence the policies enacted to regulate immigrants and immigration. However, the author points out that immigrant-specific discourse or advocacy will not solve the fundamental problems of immigrant access to care and can serve to reinforce, rather than challenge, the fundamental defects of our health care system.

Rather, this discourse can effectively serve to facilitate coalition building and advocacy to fight for meaningful and comprehensive healthcare reform that will benefit everyone.