Disrupting Immigrant and Pediatric Care

Throughout the country, doctors have seen patients go into hiding, change their phone numbers, and avoid the hospital because they no longer regard it as a protected space. Surgeries are canceled, and children with chronic medical conditions fail to appear for their needed ongoing care.

Immigrant parents are not only faced with the impossible decision of whether it is safe to bring their child to the clinic on any given day; they may also worry about whether it is even safe to sign up for or renew the medical benefits they need to afford services. In 2025, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that it would begin sharing Medicaid data it receives from states with ICE for enforcement purposes (https://tinyurl.com/ywkr5f2n). Although this practice is still prohibited in some states and is being challenged in the courts (https://tinyurl.com/fdpvdrsj), the partially successful effort to target individuals in this manner discourages immigrant families from filing for needed benefits. Thus, children may be kept away from medical care due to a lack of benefits—benefits for which they, as U.S.-born children, are legally eligible.

Health Consequences for Children

Pediatric ENTs express great concern about the effects of delayed, reduced, or cancelled appointments and procedures on their young patients’ health and futures. “We recently had a child with profound hearing loss who was scheduled for cochlear implantation,” Dr. Chinnadurai said. “His family became afraid to submit the paperwork to renew benefits, his coverage lapsed, and the surgery couldn’t happen.”

The Boston-based pediatric otolaryngologist recalled one young patient with a submandibular mass and unrelated hearing loss whose father was being deported back to Cambodia. “Even though the children are U.S. citizens and don’t have connections in Cambodia, they are unable to stay in America without their father,” they stated. “So, this child will be unable to follow our recommendations for monitoring his mass, and no workup is possible given impending deportation, so we can’t tell if it’s worrisome or not. We printed his notes and hoped that he would get the care he needed overseas, but without being able to confirm appropriate follow-up.”

In another case in Boston, a baby had a cleft palate that needed to be repaired within a specific time window to support normal speech development. “However, due to impending deportation of the family, we needed to adjust that baby’s surgery date, which resulted in an earlier-than-normal repair,” the ENT said. “Typically, in such a case, we would place tubes to restore normal hearing, but we will be unable to do this as we won’t be able to follow the tubes post-operatively. So, this child will get less complete care than if they were able to stay in the U.S.”