Public News Service | August 19, 2026
Immigrant rights groups in Washington are urging Gov. Bob Ferguson to use emergency funds to preserve healthcare for foreign-born families, including legally protected refugees and asylees, who are facing federal Medicaid cuts.
On Oct. 1, 15,000 immigrants in the state will lose coverage under the Trump administration’s massive budget bill, House Resolution 1.
Liliana Chernova, a Ukrainian immigrant who works as a caregiver for her daughter and mother-in-law, who has stage four cancer, called the cuts a human catastrophe.
“I’m just asking you to protect us, not deprive us from medical insurance. Let us live in human conditions, not to deprive our clients from medical insurance. They are needing it very, very much,” Chernova said through an interpreter.
Service Employees International Union Local 775 represents more than 60,000 long-term care workers, about a third of whom are immigrants. They said state leaders budgeted last session to protect affected residents. But now, the union said federal cuts are deeper and coming faster than expected and legislators need to do more. Washington state is facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall for the upcoming biennium.
Chernova stressed she is grateful people in Washington have been kind and welcoming to her, her husband and their nine children, eight of whom are adopted, since they came to the U.S. in 2022. She already had to flee her home twice with her family before coming to this country and hopes to live a normal life.
“I would like to tell our legislators that I respect them very much. They do great work, but we also, as immigrants, make a big contribution into American society,” Chernova emphasized..
The union is circulating a petition calling on state leaders to save healthcare for all of Washington’s immigrant communities. A Washington State Department of Social and Health Services report said federal cuts to Medicaid would cost the state about $70 million.