Fear Kept Immigrants Away From Medicaid. Now Many Can’t Come Back.
Laura doesn’t know what she’s going to do when her medication runs out. For years, she relied on Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, to cover the costs of treating her Type 2 diabetes: doctor visits, tests, medication. An undocumented immigrant from Mexico, she benefited from California policies that opened Medi-Cal to all low-income residents, regardless […]
Laura, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, faced the prospect of losing her Medi-Cal coverage due to her immigration status. She relied on the program to pay for her Type 2 diabetes treatment, but after receiving a notice that her coverage would expire, she became afraid of getting caught up in an immigration enforcement operation.
As a result, she missed many of her appointments and sent friends to pick up her prescriptions. Despite eventually renewing her coverage, Laura was denied it on January 1, 2026, when California began denying full Medi-Cal benefits to undocumented adults. Since then, she has been unable to regain her coverage. This situation is not unique to Laura; many immigrants have chosen to drop out of state-funded programs due to fears surrounding immigration enforcement and data sharing.
According to Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, the chilling effect of these policies has led many immigrants to disenroll from coverage, even when they are still eligible.
Written by urgent.news from Mother Jones's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
