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A three-judge panel on Thursday questioned the Trump administration's claim the United States would face irreparable harm if a broad requirement for legal immigrants to buy health insurance as a condition of entry remains frozen. A federal judge in Oregon blocked the mandate from taking effect nationwide in November, saying it could affect about 60 percent of all immigrant visa applicants. (Luthi, 1/9)

Judge Marsha Berzon noted that legal immigrants were eligible for government-funded health care under federal laws. “Why isn’t that (administration policy) a direct contradiction with Congress?” she asked. And under the Affordable Care Act, she said, migrants would have better coverage than under the minimal private insurance policies that Trump would allow them to buy. (Egelko, 1/9)

The plaintiffs don’t accept that the Hawaii v. Trump Supreme Court ruling made the president’s power limitless, said Naomi Igra, one of their attorneys. While the government cites figures that immigrants are three times more likely to be uninsured than U.S. citizens and that the United States shoulders $35 billion in annual uncompensated health care costs, it hasn’t quantified how much of the $35 billion is tied to uninsured immigrants, plaintiffs’ lawyer Esther Sung argued. (Bernstein, 1/9)