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Thank you for your publication of “I Need to Keep Me and My Mother Safe: The Asylum Crisis at the US-Mexico Border” by Dr. Elena Hill. As her former Program Director at Boston Medical Center, I was thrilled to read her important perspectives and the narratives that she shared -- ones that shine light on the deep and important hard truths that endure at our national borders.
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As a family medicine physician working on the front lines of an urban safety net hospital, I was also struck by how Dr. Hill’s stories of refugees ring true for many of the structural barriers that patients have within our national borders. In particular, the author’s stunning narratives of people who have suffered discrimination in their home countries, having to take a number and lining up without any clear sense of where they are in the line, when they may be called (“from months to years”) or whether in fact they will ever be called, parallels many of the narratives I hear from patients daily as they struggle to find safe and stable housing.
The term “housing instability” is broad and includes moving frequently,staying with friends or relatives, or spending the bulk of a household income on housing (1,2). Black and Latinx households are two times more likely to experience housing instability (3), as are Blacks who have spent time in prison (4). In fact, 5 years after release from prison, Black individuals who have spent time in prison were more likely to experience housing instability th...Competing Interests: None declared.