Entitled to Nothing: The Struggle for Immigrant Health Care in the Age of Welfare Reform

Nation of Nations: Immigrant History as American History

by Lisa Sun-Hee Park

In Entitled to Nothing, Lisa Sun-Hee Park investigates how the politics of immigration, health care, and welfare are intertwined. Documenting the formal return of the immigrant as a "public charge," or a burden upon the State, the author shows how the concept has been revived as states adopt punitive policies targeting immigrants of color and require them to "pay back" benefits for which they are legally eligible during a time of intense debate regarding welfare reform.



Park argues that the notions of "public charge" and "public burden" were reinvigorated in the 1990s to target immigrant women of reproductive age for deportation and as part of a larger project of "disciplining" immigrants. Drawing on nearly 200 interviews with immigrant organizations, government agencies and safety net providers, as well as careful tracking of policies and media coverage, Park provides vivid, first-person accounts of how struggles over the "public charge" doctrine unfolded on the ground, as well as its consequences for the immigrant community. Ultimately, she shows that the concept of "public charge" continues to lurk in the background, structuring our conception of who can legitimately access public programs and of the moral economy of work and citizenship in the U.S., and makes important policy suggestions for reforming our immigration system.

Genres: Immigration

213 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Claire Poindexter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly researched analysis of the social construction of immigrants, particularly low-income, pregnant immigrants, and immigrant access to healthcare. Presented in the landscape of California and the complex history of Medi-Cal and public charge. In my opinion, a really relevant read given upcoming rule changes in public charge determinations and border wall talks. Sheds light on the attack on immigrant motherhood and the exploitation of immigrants for cheap labor through the guise of neoliberalism. Through her book, the author quite accurately foretells future changes to public charge that would fear monger immigrants into further losing public benefits and health care - despite remaining eligible.

“what this county as a whole is more concerned about is fraud and fraud prevention than they are in provision of services, so everything they do is geared toward making sure the wrong people don’t get it and if that means that many people who may be eligible don’t get it in the process too, well that’s just the way it goes.”

“This then leads to the question of inclusion as a goal for social justice. Not only does inclusion appear to be impossible, but the more you want it, the more elusive it becomes. Like illusions of consumptive satisfaction via capitalist accumulation, efforts toward inclusion within a capitalist system may simply function as a tool for behavioral discipline. Immigrants are already included; in fact, immigrants are fundamental to the current functioning of neoliberal capitalism. And the way in which immigrants are included actually produces injustice for many in order to benefit the few. The central focus for immigrant social justice cannot rest simply on inclusion within the state. As noted, immigrants are already included, just differentially so (i.e., as cheap labor). In this way, true immigrant rights lie beyond what is dictated by neoliberal capital doctrine. Instead, it is a central site for resistance against inequality and the pursuit of greater social justice for all working people.”

“the struggle for immigrant health care makes it is clear that free enterprise is anything but free or normal.”