RESUMO
More than 500,000 US citizen migrant children were residing in Mexico in 2015, and more than half of them had limited, inadequate health insurance despite their citizenship status. The majority of these children lived in Mexican states near the US border. Despite these numbers, knowledge regarding these children and their health has been scarce. To address these knowledge gaps, we analyzed data from the 2015 Mexican Intercensal Survey to examine whether the health insurance status of US citizen migrant children in Mexico is linked to individual, household, and state factors. We compared rates of insured US citizen migrant children with rates among those who were underinsured. We found high rates of underinsurance among US citizen migrant children, especially in northern Mexican border states. Parental education, labor-force participation, urban residence, and border residence partially accounted for these children's probability of being insured. Our results have implications for binational policies that extend health care protection to US citizen migrant children through reintegration assistance for their parents, an expedited dual-citizenship application process, and exempting these children from the automatic cancellation of US-based health benefits.
Assuntos
Seguro Saúde , Migrantes , Criança , Acessibilidade aos Serviços de Saúde , Humanos , Cobertura do Seguro , Pessoas sem Cobertura de Seguro de Saúde , México , Políticas , Estados UnidosRESUMO
Unaccompanied minors, or "newcomer youths," come to the United States from Mexico and Central America to escape violence and persecution, and to seek financial and academic opportunities. Many newcomer youths arrive with gaps in their formal education attributed to the immigration process and the heterogeneity of their pre-U.S. lives. Once they are enrolled in the U.S. school system, many educators struggle to accommodate the academic needs of these students. Drawing on the framework of social and cultural capital, this article aimed to expand the current knowledge on the experiences of Latino unaccompanied youths in the U.S. school system. A thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with 30 newcomer students and 10 key informants revealed six themes: socialización con los demás compañeros (getting along with the other students); poca confianza (little trust); no sé lo que decían (I do not know what they were saying); it is a hard landing; education, interrupted; and estoy agradecido (I am grateful). The article offers suggestions for school social workers and educators on how to promote academic success, student resilience, and school connectedness for a vulnerable youth population.