Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the citizenship and immigration status of uninsured children under 18 years old.
GAO noted that its analysis of the Current Population Survey showed that for 1995: (1) among uninsured children, almost 9 out of 10 children were born in the United States and most of the rest were foreign-born noncitizen residents; (2) although foreign-born noncitizen children constituted only 3.3 percent of U.S. children in 1995, they accounted for over 9 percent of all uninsured children, (3) almost 37 percent of foreign-born noncitizen children were uninsured in 1995, about 847,000 children; (4) in comparison, only 12.5 percent of U.S.-born children were uninsured, but this group numbers over 8,250,000 children; (5) a parent of an uninsured child was more likely to be foreign born than were his or her children; (6) almost 3 out of 10 of the parents who matched with uninsured children were foreign born; and (7) four-fifths of these foreign-born parents were not citizens.
