Urges Senate, House Leadership to Address the Issue

Washington, DC – Today, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., voiced its deep disappointment in the continued exclusion of legal immigrants from a House-passed bill reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), H.R. 976 and continued to urge House and Senate leadership on both sides of the aisle to address this glaring inequity.

“When Congress debates the vital issue of expanding access to health care for the nation’s children, it is inexcusable to exclude a significant group of vulnerable children,” said Janet Murguía, NCLR’s President and CEO. “We cannot celebrate an expansion of health coverage when so many of our children are left behind.”

It has been more than a decade since a bipartisan group of advocates and legislators began calling for removal of a five-year bar to federally-funded Medicaid and SCHIP placed upon legal immigrant children and pregnant women; over that time the Immigrant Children’s Health Improvement Act (ICHIA) has attracted significant bipartisan support, and has been approved by both the House and the Senate during different Congresses. ICHIA was added to the House version of the SCHIP reauthorization, though it was struck from the final conference report approved by House and Senate negotiators.

“Those who argue that this bill expands health coverage to children have not explained why they have excluded legal immigrant children, nor have they said how they will correct this injustice,” concluded Murguía.

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