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Mayes joins multi-state coalition to protect 'Dreamer' access to Affordable Care Act coverage

Arizona DREAMers
(Photo by Carrie Jung - KJZZ)
DREAMers and other advocates gathered in Phoenix to demand area lawmakers do more to defend the DACA program.

Arizona’s Kris Mayes is one of 14 attorneys general behind a new legal filing that aims to protect DACA recipients’ access to federally funded health insurance.

The attorneys general filed a motion to intervene in a case over whether immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — also known as Dreamers — should be able to purchase health care through the Affordable Care Act.

That access was opened to Dreamers for the first time last year. But in a suit filed against the Biden administration, Kansas and other GOP-led states argue the change violates procedural statutes around who is eligible for federally funded assistance.

Mayes says her new filing comes as the incoming Trump administration is expected to halt efforts to defend the coverage. She says access to affordable health care is an essential lifeline for thousands, and denying Dreamers that ability hurts public health and drives up costs elsewhere.

In a unanimous ruling Friday, a federal appeals court partially upheld a lower court ruling declaring the DACA program unlawful, but stopped short of allowing the ruling to go into effect outside Texas. The future of the program will likely be decided now at the Supreme Court.

More Arizona politics news

Alisa Reznick is a senior field correspondent covering stories across southern Arizona and the borderlands for the Tucson bureau of KJZZ's Fronteras Desk.