Health Impacts of Immigration
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) recognizes that immigration policies aimed at denying basic human rights to migrant, asylee and refugee populations, documented or undocumented, can limit access to vital health care services, including comprehensive primary care.
The AAFP recommends that health care systems should meet standards of care without compromising a migrant, asylee and refugee persons' rights. It also supports privacy protections for medical records of all migrant, asylee and refugee persons, whether documented or undocumented, equal to those afforded to U.S. citizens.
The AAFP also recommends timely access both to healthcare for migrant, asylee and refugee persons in detention facilities and measures to reduce the toxic stress associated with the threat of detention and deportation.
The AAFP supports appropriate payment of physicians for care delivered to migrant, asylee and refugee persons and their families. (2019) (September 2024 COD)
See Also
- Health Care for All: A Framework for Moving to a Primary Care-Based Health Care System in the United States
- Medically Underserved
- Comprehensive Care, Access to
- Community and Migrant Health Centers
- Medical Schools, Service to Populations Historically and Intentionally Excluded, Minoritized, and Under-resourced in Medicine
- Migrant Health Care
- Criminalization of the Provision of Medical Care to Undocumented Individuals