New York Times: Prof. Acevedo-Garcia Explains How New GOP Bill Harms Children with Immigrant Relatives
The Trump administration is pushing sweeping policy changes to restrict undocumented immigrants and some legal immigrants from accessing federal benefits like housing, food stamps, Medicaid, and the Child Tax Credit. While officials say the goal is to prevent misuse of taxpayer funds, critics argue the measures will disproportionately harm U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families and legal immigrants like refugees. In a New York Times article, Prof. Dolores Acevedo-Garcia from BU School of Social Work (BUSSW) warns these changes could worsen poverty, health, and educational outcomes for millions of children and families, while offering limited savings to the federal budget. The article also cites a study by the Institute for Equity in Child Opportunity & Healthy Development (IECOHD) at BUSSW, of which Acevedo-Garcia is director, which explains that children with at least one immigrant parent are twice as likely to live in poverty.
Excerpt from “Republican Crackdown on Aid to Immigrants Would Hit U.S. Citizens” by Madeleine Ngo and Lydia DePillis:
Twelve percent of American children, or about nine million people, are citizens with at least one noncitizen parent. Children with at least one immigrant parent are twice as likely to live in poverty than those with native-born parents, according to a 2022 report by researchers at IECOHD…Others said the potential changes would undermine the well-being of children who are U.S. citizens in immigrant households. Families where someone doesn’t have a Social Security number are already ineligible for the earned-income tax credit, which provides a significant boost to low-income households. Research has found that children who receive similar cash benefits go on to have better health, earn more and commit fewer crimes later in life.
‘Going forward, they are the adults of this country,’ said Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, a professor at BU School of Social Work who studies immigrants. ‘Do we want to disinvest in them now so that their education and health and everything deteriorates, and then we have to face that in a few years from now?’”