Professor Medha D. Makhlouf quoted in Stateline article

CARLISLE, Pa.—Professor Medha D. Makhlouf was recently interviewed by Stateline, a state-focused nonprofit news organization, for an article titled “ICE is using Medicaid data to find out where immigrants live.” The piece details a policy change that enables U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use states’ Medicaid data to investigate noncitizens targeted for deportation.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia sued to block this sharing of information with ICE. A preliminary injunction allows ICE to access limited information about Medicaid enrollees who are not lawfully present in the United States, but this applies in plaintiff states and DC only. These limitations do not apply in non-plaintiff states. The policy change has sparked worries that even lawfully present immigrant families will avoid enrolling in Medicaid based on fears of negative immigration consequences.

“Previously the federal government has balanced immigration enforcement interests with the protection of health-related interests,” Makhlouf told Stateline. “Now they’re weighing much more heavily the interests of immigration enforcement.”

You can read the full article by clicking here.

Professor Medha D. Makhlouf is the Elsie de R. and Samuel P. Orlando Distinguished Professor and founding director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Penn State Dickinson Law. She has a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. Professor Makhlouf’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of health law, immigrants’ rights, and poverty law and policy. Her recent scholarship has been published in the Boston University Law Review, New York University Law Review, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics. Professor Makhlouf is currently writing a book, tentatively titled Health Justice for Migrants, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press.