Emily Bass

A set of presentations on the impact of criminalization of irregular migration and undocumented migrants in terms of health-seeking behavior and HIV risk, as well as an examination of the components of a successful campaign against bad policy in the UK.

Yusuf Azad (National AIDS Trust, UK) told the story of a successful evidence-driven campaign to challenge British government policy that dictates that undocumented migrants are not eligible for free care and are charged for accessing certain services, and highlighted the critical role of high quality evidence (time of arrival in country, time of diagnosis, CD4 cell count) in building a counter argument to the claim that migrants are "health tourists." Phillip Marotta from the Global Health Research Center of Central Asia showed that criminalization of migration status increased sexual risk among market workers in Kazakhstan, with the largest magnitude of effect for incarceration followed by arrest, while two presentations, one from US and one from Canada, demonstrated that the fear of raids (Canada) or perceived immigration laws (US) had a negative impact on health seeking behaviors.

Presentations in this session filled in gaps in evidence and documentation of the specific links between criminalization of migration and individual and public health; while only one presentation provided an example of the means to combat such policies, all of the presentations yielded data that is actionable in making arguments for better policies and programs.