U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ruled last week that those who entered the country illegally when they were young – a group often referred to as "Dreamers" – will be temporarily blocked from getting health insurance in 19 states through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) public marketplace.
Traynor concluded through what he called "a common-sense inference" that access to subsidized ACA coverage is a powerful incentive for people to remain in the U.S. illegally, creating a substantial risk that states will "suffer monetary harm."
The injunction will remain in effect until the matter can go to trial. The case stems from a lawsuit filed in August by Kansas and North Dakota, and then joined by 17 other states (see list below).
AFN spoke with Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "You have to wonder why the attorneys general in the other states haven't joined the suit – but I think we know the answer to that one," he begins.
Regardless, Mehlman says this is a victory for the taxpayers of those states that did join the lawsuit.
"… This gets us back to what the intent of Congress was when it passed the Affordable Care Act," he tells AFN. "The issue of whether illegal aliens should be covered by the Affordable Care Act did come up, and it was rejected by Congress back in 2010 – and ever since then you have had states that are trying to find ways around the letter of the law. And finally, we have a judge who said You can't do it."
Mehlman is hopeful that, come January, the new Congress and the Trump administration can work to close any of the loopholes that might be exploited by some of the (what he calls) "recalcitrant" states.
"The bill that was passed in 2023 by the House [H.R.2 – Secure the Border Act] closed a lot of the loopholes that the Biden administration was exploiting," Mehlman notes. "[Congress will now] need to look at all of these things and make sure that those loopholes are airtight."
Joining Kansas and North Dakota in the lawsuit were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
