Lifesaving health care for children at risk, but halted.

Due to a new state law that went into effect July 1, families started to receive letters from the Tennessee Department of Health service informing them that if they could not prove citizenship when enrolling their personal information would be shared with the state Central Immigration Enforcement Office. When families reached out to us to share the letters, we knew we had to step up. Through organizing and advocacy, we supported the Tennessee Justice Center and brave physicians who came forward on behalf of their patients as they filed a lawsuit against the state.

Along with litigation, we agitated our ally base, shaped the narrative, and secured national news coverage, advocacy efforts that ultimately helped secure a temporary pause on removing these children from their services and allowing families to re-enroll. Seeing how quickly this state agency implemented harmful systems that exclude immigrant families, we are now planning to scale this work to monitor benefits and enrollment processes across the state to ensure immigrant families get the care and services to which they are entitled.