Second-Class Citizens: The Schism between Immigration Policy and Children's Health Care

Authors

John A. Castro

Abstract

This article argues that two courses of American politics, immigration policy and children's health care, have developed in such a way so as to cause a string of conflicts that ultimately deprives citizen children of undocumented immigrants of rights and privileges enjoyed by their native-parented counterparts. Such a result, the author argues, is nothing short of a deprivation of Fourteenth Amendment citizenship rights. The article begins with a historical overview of the birth of children's health care, a cause that has its roots in child labor and immigration. The article then provides an overview of how the conflicts between immigration policy and children's health care manifest. Such problems manifest in statutes and government programs with conflicting intent, unsettled case law, and a national census with structural problems. The author then provides a brief overview of President Obama's political agenda, and ultimately concludes that the Obama administration is unlikely to cure the conflicts between immigration policy and children's health care.

Recommended Citation

John A. Castro, Second-Class Citizens: The Schism between Immigration Policy and Children's Health Care, 37 Hastings Const. L.Q. 199 (2009).
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_constitutional_law_quaterly/vol37/iss1/6