For true herd immunity, we must vaccinate immigrants as a priority | Laura Spinney

The US hasn ’t learned from past pandemics. The health of naturalized Americans is intertwined with that of immigrantsThe Trump administration ’s colossal mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t over, and won’t be for a long time after the current president’s departure. There’s a sting in that administration’s tail, whose poison is already spreading through the US population. It has been invisible until now, at least in th e higher echelons of power, but as the mass vaccination campaign moves into its next phase its effects are becoming painfully and tragically obvious. The sting has an innocuous-sounding name: the public charge rule.The public charge rule links an immigrant ’s eligibility for residency in the US – the famous green card – to the burden they place on the public purse, including their use of certain publicly funded health services. It has existed since the Immigration Act of 1882 stated that an immigrant who was “unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge” should be refused entry to the country. The law doesn’t define “public charge” and the term has always been open to interpretation, but no administration has interpreted it in as draconian a fashion as Donald Trump’s. The current version of the rul e met huge resistance as it made its way through the country’s lawmaking machinery, but it is now effective in the majority of states, with the result that immigrants seeking the legal right to ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Coronavirus Health policy Infectious diseases Politics Public services policy Science Source Type: news