Study finds most Americans oppose detaining sick undocumented immigrants but support post-treatment detention

A major new study has found that most people in the United States are not in favor of detaining sick, undocumented immigrants who reach interior border checkpoints, but do support detention after medical treatment is complete.

Researchers with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health surveyed more than 6,100 respondents. Their study is thought to be the first to assess the public’s perceptions of the role of the nation’s interior border checkpoints as gatekeepers to health care access.

These checkpoints are in the United States within 25 and 100 miles of the border for the purpose of ensuring that all individuals passing through can provide evidence of citizenship or legal status in the United States. There are 110 permanent checkpoints and an estimated 170 temporary checkpoints, which combined process more than 50 million vehicles every year.

“Legal status—along with racism, language skills, safe housing, transportation and similar factors—is an important social determinant of health,” said Christine Crudo Blackburn, PhD. “These contribute to a wide array of systemic health disparities and inequities that reduce quality of life and life expectancy.”

Blackburn said immigration enforcement policies enforced through interior border checkpoints could contribute to health disparities by preventing immigrants and their families from seeking needed medical care. These policies, as well as trauma associated with their enforcement, often decrease immigrants’ trust in health care institutions.

“Undocumented individuals throughout the U.S. border zone often must decide between receiving medical care and facing deportation or forgoing or delaying care, and this is likely to increase as interior immigration enforcement continues to be a higher political priority,” she said. “The U.S. government has dedicated millions of dollars to expand these checkpoints along the border with Mexico.”

Blackburn and Simon F. Haeder, PhD, both with the Department of Health Policy and Management, conducted the study, which was published in Health Economics, Policy and Law.

The pair surveyed 6,178 respondents in the United States between Nov. 13 and Nov. 19, 2023, to determine public opinion regarding internal border checkpoints as barriers to health care access, as well as perceptions of undocumented immigrants’ right to health care access.

“Our analyses found broad public support for expanding existing policies to allow for undocumented individuals to pass through internal border checkpoints to access medical care,” Haeder said. “In addition, respondents supported detention when the patient completed medical treatment and was released.”

In addition, respondents were generally more sympathetic toward children and pregnant women. Political partisanship and sympathy for undocumented immigrants influenced opinions about all four potential locations of detention as well as for both emergency and non-emergency situations.

“These findings generally support studies that show Americans are becoming increasingly pro-immigrant,” Blackburn said. “Our findings are more nuanced, however, because immigrant demographics play an important role and because most respondents supported detention at some point in the care-seeking process or upon release, which may ultimately deter undocumented immigrants from seeking care in the first place.”

Blackburn said future research should focus on whether Americans only support maintaining access to care or if there is support for expanding access to care for undocumented immigrants.

“This is an ongoing issue not just in the political realm, but also in the public health realm as we seek to increase equity and improve health care access for all,” Blackburn said.