How Policy Choices Create Barriers to Health Care for Immigrant Families: One Family’s Story

A range of policy barriers undermine continuity in health coverage and care for immigrant families—from eligibility restrictions, to documentation requirements, to misinformation and more. This family’s story illustrates how a patchwork of narrow and complex eligibility rules create gaps in access to care within a single mixed-immigration status household.

While this infographic depicts a hypothetical family, each scenario reflects common experiences immigrant families face across the country—shaped by federal and state policy choices that make coverage unstable and care difficult to maintain.