Finger Lakes Community Health (FLCH) is a tele health program in the Finger Lakes region along the Canadian border that serves 27,000 patients, including 9,000 who are farm workers and many of whom are refugees and immigrants. There are "refugees from Burma and immigrants from China, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, and Mexico." (Chow, npr.org) Because such a large portion of the people FLCH serves are immigrants this tele health program was launched in an effort to maintain the health and well-being of these rural communities, that otherwise would not seek out medical attention.
Seeing as this region is so close to the U.S.- Canadian border, there is a large presence of Border Patrol, so many immigrants are afraid to travel along the roads. Chow writes in her article that "by U.S. law, Border Patrol can board-and search-any vehicle within a "reasonable distance" of the border." (Chow, npr.org) The Border Patrol has been active in exercising this U.S. law as evident by the fact that staff members of FLCH who are persons of color have been stopped by Border Patrol before while in route to see patients. Many immigrants, legal or not, have tremendous anxiety about venturing to far from where they live, so many choose not to travel unnecessarily, including not going to the doctor if they don't have to. This program is relatively new, but with new innovative ways of connecting physicians with patients through video calls and home visits there is hope that the people in these communities will get the care that they need, while giving them one less thing to worry about concerning their immigration status.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/04/06/598038490/in-a-border-region-where-immigrants-are-wary-a-health-center-travels-to-its-pati
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