By Grace Kaseke Kindeke
In 2012, President Obama announced a new program that offered relief to a small portion of the 11 million undocumented people living in the US at the time. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) provided recipients with temporary protection from deportation and permitted work authorization. When the news came, I was a 25-year-old undocumented Granite Stater working a variety of caregiving and hospitality jobs and closely followed the immigration reform stalemate in Congress.
For years I struggled to make ends meet, had no savings and relied on loved ones and limited public transportation to get around. I couldn’t afford dental care or regular doctor’s visits. I relied on home remedies to treat illnesses and faith to prevent injuries. The only affordable medical care I could access was through Planned Parenthood where I received compassionate but limited care
NH is home to 230 DACA recipients[1], (loved ones, friends, colleagues and neighbors) who are now the target of the state’s recent decision to join a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s decision to expand eligibility to publicly funded health insurance programs for DACA recipients[2]. The lawsuit, Kansas et al. v. the United States of America et al., paints a harmful and inaccurate picture of DACA recipients, using discredited data from the notoriously anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).[3] The complaint inaccurately paints DACA recipients and undocumented immigrants as drains on the resources of “real Americans.” However, many reputable studies cite the opposite: immigrants, including those without lawful status, significantly contribute to the social and economic fabric of the US, including NH, as community members, workers, taxpayers, and consumers.[4]
Lack of access to healthcare takes its toll not only on an individual, their families and communities but on our society overall. Healthy people create healthy communities, and accessible healthcare is a common good that benefits everyone.
It’s appalling that Governor Sununu aims to spend his last few months in office targeting the very people he’s tasked with representing and protecting. The governor and the attorney general’s first obligations are to ensure the wellbeing of all people in the state. NH must withdraw from this needlessly cruel lawsuit and focus our attention and resources on addressing real challenges within our communities. Attorney General Formella’s assertion that this expanded eligibility constitutes a “misuse of public funds”[5] is laughable in light of his support for wasteful programs like the Northern Border Alliance and the unnecessary deployment of National Guard personnel to the Texas-Mexico border (costing taxpayers $1.48 million and $850,000 respectively).
Using anti-immigrant tactics is a disservice to all of the people of NH and raises real risks for those perceived to be immigrants whether they are citizens or not. The possibility of harm is even greater for immigrants of color.[6] Beyond the very real risks of physical violence, these political calculations undermine the AG’s stated efforts to mitigate hate crimes.
I was able to survive those years as an undocumented person because of community support. A good friend’s parents who paid the legal fees for my DACA application; the many rides from co-workers and friends to Boston for affordable medical services; the countless hours loved ones spent supporting me. This spirit of community care is one that the governor and attorney general could do well to emulate rather than borrowing from a playbook rooted in discrimination and disinformation.
***
Grace Kaseke Kindeke is an artist, the AFSC-NH Program Coordinator and a B.A. student of Africana Studies and Sociology at UMASS Boston. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and lives in Manchester.
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/active_daca_recipients_fy2024_q2.xlsx
[2] https://www.nhbr.com/nh-joins-lawsuit-to-block-health-insurance-subsidies-for-daca-recipients/
[3] The Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, condemned the FAIR methodologies that this lawsuit relies upon for data: FAIR’s “Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration” is Fatally Flawed, Cato at Liberty, Cato Institute (Sept. 29, 2017) at https://www.cato.org/blog/fairs-fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-study-fatally-flawed.
[4] See, for example, The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States, Cato at Liberty, Cato Institute(Mar. 21, 2023) “In our recent paper, “The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States,” we investigate this question and find that immigrants pay more in taxes than they consume in benefits, on average.” https://www.cato.org/blog/fiscal-impact-immigration-united-states#:~:text=In%20our%20recent%20paper%2C%20%E2%80%9CThe,consume%20in%20benefits%2C%20on%20average. See also, Immigrants Contribute Greatly to the U.S. Economy Despite Administration’s ‘Public Charge’ Rule Rationale, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Aug. 15, 2019) at https://www.cbpp.org/research/immigrants-contribute-greatly-to-us-economy-despite-administrations-public-charge-rule.
[5] https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/new-hampshire-joins-multistate-lawsuit-against-cms-over-expanded-definition-lawfully
[6] See, for example, Anti-immigrant Rhetoric Sparks Fears of More Crimes Against Latinos, Axios (Mar. 7, 2024) at https://www.axios.com/2024/03/07/latinos-immigration-rhetoric-fears-hate-crimes, How Hateful Rhetoric Connects to Real World Violence, Brookings Institute (Apr. 9, 2021).
InDepthNH.org takes no position on politics or candidates, but welcomes diverse opinions at nancywestnews@gmail.com
