No Rights No Freedom
What rights are denied?
Denial to Public Assistance Programs
A recent law, known as the “public charge” law says that any applications for citizenship received by an illegal immigrant that has received any form of public benefits for need will be rejected (Sherman et al., 2019). This makes these immigrants fear receiving benefits that may help put a roof over their head or may cause them to not seek medical care when needed in fear of the bill they will receive, due to not being able to get insurance such as Medicaid.
Denial to Healthcare
Healthcare is a necessary resource for everyone, as a lot of issues can occur when it comes to people's health. However, for Mexican immigrants and other minority groups living in the US, many factors can shape how accessible, if at all, healthcare access is. This may include language barriers, immigration status, previous interactions with health care personnel, low income, discrimination, etc.
The results of this study showed that most Mexican immigrants wait until they are very sick to receive healthcare. This was due to personal influences such as fear, embarrassment, and lack of income, interpersonal influences such as effective communication and respect from the provider, and systemic influences such as minimal access to insurance, and contrasts between the Mexican and the US healthcare systems (Reininger et al., 2014).
Difficult to Gain Citizenship to Receive These Rights
Getting citizenship is extremely difficult for Mexican Americans. Not only do most not understand how to attempt to get it, but there are many rules and implications that make it nearly impossible.
Studies from Wilkins and colleagues suggest that there may be a potential fear of racial progress with the ability for Mexicans to get the same opportunities available to most white people in America which may lead to a threat to the racial hierarchy that leaves white people at the top (Wilkins et al., 2013).