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In a decision issued Thursday, the 9th Circuit upheld a Trump administration policy requiring immigrants to have health insurance.
Back in October 2019, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation barring entry for immigrants who didn’t already hold a health insurance policy. A class action lawsuit challenging the health insurance requirement was filed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association and other organizations by the end of the month.
In November of that year, Oregon District Judge Michael Simon issued a nationwide injunction on Trump’s requirement that those moving into the U.S. have health insurance.
At the time, Judge Simon said health insurance options for immigrants were limited, were not practical and went against the intent behind the existing Affordable Care Act. Judge Simon said in his ruling Trump’s proclamation “undermined” the president’s own goal of easing the burden of “uncompensated care.”
The decision issued Thursday by the 9th Circuit, however, says the president has the authority to restrict immigration.
In a 2-1 vote, Judge Daniel Collins, a Trump appointee, cited a previous Supreme Court case, Trump v. Hawaii, that centered around the so-called Muslim ban.
Justices in that case ruled the president may restrict immigration policies if doing so doesn’t break existing laws. A George W. Bush-appointed judge, Jay Bybee, agreed with Judge Collins’ decision.
“Nothing in Trump v. Hawaii requires a bright-line trigger for terminating additional restrictions that have been imposed,” Judge Collins said in his opinion.
Judge Wallace Tashima, a Bill Clinton appointee, was the lone dissenting vote, calling the restriction “a major overhaul of this nation’s immigration laws without the input of Congress — a sweeping and unprecedented exercise of unilateral Executive power.”
Trump’s proclamation requiring immigrants to have health insurance “has no nexus to national security, addresses a purely domestic concern (uncompensated health care costs), lacks any conceivable temporal limit,” Judge Tashima added.
The same day the 9th Circuit issued its opinion removing the ban requiring immigrants to have health insurance, Trump renewed coronavirus bans on visas, according to The Arizona Republic.
Until Thursday, federal judges have mostly minimized the effect of these bans, according to the report.
A series of bans on different categories of visas began in April in response to the coronavirus pandemic, followed by a series of legal challenges.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation were among the plaintiffs filing lawsuits against the immigration restrictions.
In October 2020, a San Francisco federal judge ruled the visa ban could not be enforced. In December, an Oakland federal judge blocked the ban from being used against 181 plaintiffs, according to The Arizona Republic.
President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office Jan. 20, has not specifically addressed the health insurance requirements in his immigration policy statements.
The 9th Circuit’s ruling “makes clear that the Biden administration must move swiftly to rescind all of President Trump’s xenophobic presidential proclamations, including this health care ban,” plaintiffs’ counsel Esther Sung of the Justice Action Center told The Arizona Republic.
Do you agree with the 9th Circuit’s decision upholding President Trump’s proclamation requiring immigrants to have health insurance? Let us know why or why not in the comments below.
The Health Insurance Lawsuit is John Doe No. 1, et al. v. Donald Trump, et al., Case No. 19-36020, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
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