When Camila Bortolleto was 9 years old, her parents brought her from Brazil to the U.S.
Bortolleto’s parents are undocumented, but in 2013 she was approved for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed her to get a job and, with it, job-based health insurance.
Bortolleto, now 36 and living in Connecticut, left her job at a nonprofit in June, which meant losing her health insurance and leaving her with no other options: DACA recipients have been barred from receiving government-funded health insurance.
That changed Friday, when tens of thousands of DACA recipients became able to sign up for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act for the first time.
The change — which coincided with the first day of the ACA’s open enrollment period — marks a pivotal moment for the more than 535,000 active DACA recipients in the U.S.
That lack of access, experts say, has led to high rates of uninsured among DACA recipients, sometimes referred to as “Dreamers.”