August 20, 2018
Omolara Uwemedimo and her staff make a point of asking patients upfront if they qualify for benefits — including food stamps, or subsidized health insurance. But now Uwemedimo is finding that many of her patients are wary about signing up, because they’ve heard that doing so could hurt their chances of getting a visa for a family member to visit, or hurt their own chances of getting a green card. “They’re saying we want our family to stay together,” said Uwemedimo. “A lot of families have decided that they don’t want to engage [out of] fear.”