PROFESSOR MEDHA D. MAKHLOUF CO-AUTHORS ARTICLE FRAMING IMMIGRATION REFORMS AS HEALTH POLICY
September 2022 — Professor Medha D. Makhlouf recently co-authored an article, “Immigration Reforms as Health Policy,” in the Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy. The article was published in a symposium issue titled “Health Care After the 2020 Election: The Path: Forward,” which focuses on the most important post-election opportunities to advance health access and health equity. Professor Makhlouf’s co-author is Patrick Glen, Senior Litigation Counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Immigration Litigation and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
The article proposes that political leaders should consider the health implications of immigration policies. It begins by describing three issues at the intersection of health policy and immigration law: restrictions on immigrant eligibility for health-promoting public benefits, immigration laws that do not restrict but discourage immigrants from enrolling in public benefits, and laws regulating the entry of immigrant health care professionals. It then discusses opportunities for legislative reform relating to each of the issues. In the final Part, the authors propose administrative actions to more fully realize the goals of statutory reforms. The authors close by emphasizing the unique opportunity that Congress has to advance mutually reinforcing reform efforts in both immigration and health policy.
Other articles in the symposium issue focus on the effect of housing and voting laws on racial health disparities, the promise of community-based integrated health teams, reforms to create accountability mechanisms for private health insurers, health care fraud, and disability justice.
This is the second article that Professor Makhlouf has co-authored with Professor Glen, the first being “A Pathway to Health Care Citizenship for DACA Beneficiaries,” published in California Law Review Online last year. Regarding their partnership, Professor Makhlouf states, “It’s fun to work with Professor Glen on these articles because his primary orientation is to immigration law while mine is to health law — but we both enjoy getting into the details of how these fields intersect.”
Professor Medha D. Makhlouf is an Assistant 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 New York University Law Review, the California Law Review Online, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law & Ethics. Professor Makhlouf’s work is available at https://works.bepress.com/medha-makhlouf/.