Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ will leave millions of Latino children without healthcare
Minors who are US citizens and have an undocumented parent will lose access to medical coverage and food assistance
“Children and families across America are at risk of losing affordable health coverage and access to healthy meals to pay for a massive tax cut for billionaires and big corporations,” said Florida Congresswoman Kathy Castor.
Last Thursday, the House of Representatives approved the spending bill by a single vote (215 to 214), and it now moves to the Senate, where Republicans also hold a majority. If the Senate gives its approval, this bill would lead to the largest cuts to Medicaid — the program providing medical assistance to low-income individuals — in U.S. history. Additionally, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would suffer its deepest reduction in nearly three decades, as critics have pointed out. These cuts would endanger children, particularly those in Latino and other historically marginalized communities.
This is highlighted in a new report published by UnidosUS, AFL-CIO, and First Focus on Children, which shows that nearly 45% of children in the U.S. (about 34 million) rely on Medicaid and SNAP for essential healthcare and nutrition. Of those, 14 million children rely on both programs, putting them at double the risk of losing access to healthcare and food assistance.
“There is nothing in this big bill that’s beautiful for children, but the gigantic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are particularly ugly,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children. “Children already are struggling with rising infant and child mortality, increased poverty, and growing rates of hunger, homelessness and a lack of health insurance. These proposed cuts would dig deeper into this crisis.”
The spending bill includes a $1 trillion cut to social protection programs. The measure has been denounced by experts as racially biased. Fifty-eight percent of Latino children, 67% of Native American children, and 65% of Black children benefit from one of the programs.
“Let’s be clear: this bill is nothing short of an assault on our values as a country, but that’s not the worst. It strips away access to health care, food assistance, and clean energy, just to fund tax breaks for billionaires and criminalize vulnerable communities,” said Katharine Pichardo, president and CEO of Latino Victory.
Without SNAP or Medicaid, more children will face hunger, developmental delays, and untreated medical conditions, including chronic illnesses that could have been prevented with early care. Poverty is tied to race and ethnicity — 29% of Hispanic children in mixed-status families live in poverty. According to the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), children of immigrants experience poverty at twice the rate of those with two citizen parents, and Latino children experience triple the poverty rate of white children.
The bill contradicts Republican promises not to fund tax cuts through reductions to healthcare assistance programs like Medicaid and Medicare. However, it aligns with their push to limit social program use by immigrant families.
Americans, but not quite
Immigrant rights advocates argue that the changes will primarily affect children who are U.S. citizens but have undocumented or temporarily authorized immigrant parents. About 12% of U.S. children — around nine million — have at least one parent who is not a U.S. citizen. The “beautiful” law removes benefits for anyone with a parent who is not a citizen or who lacks permanent residency. This includes refugees, asylum recipients, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries, and DACA recipients who arrived in the U.S. as children.
Currently, fewer than one in 10 American children with U.S. citizen parents (4%) lack health insurance — half the rate of those with parents (8%) who are not citizens.
In addition to losing access to health insurance and food stamps, migrant families without a Social Security number will lose the child tax credit, which the bill sets at $2,500 per child — affecting between two and four million U.S. children.
Republicans defend the proposal as part of their crackdown on undocumented immigrants, whom they accuse of abusing social programs to the detriment of American citizens. But the cuts will mostly impact those who are in the country legally, as unauthorized immigrants do not receive federal benefits. Some states provide healthcare or educational access, but the federal government has already threatened reprisals for doing so. Moreover, many immigrants are afraid to provide personal data or apply for benefits they qualify for, fearing it will make them a target for deportation.