Giving Compass' Take:

• Governing magazine reports on the dire options many undocumented immigrants face when it comes to health care access — many are afraid of being deported if they apply for certain types of coverage.

• This opens up a larger discussion about humane immigration policy (DACA in particular): How can health care providers and NGOs in the sector collaborate to make sure those who need care can get it?

• Here's how certain immigration laws may prevent human trafficking survivors from seeking help.

“Dear the most highly respected judge and court, I’m writing this because I love my mom. My mom is very important to me. I have no idea what to do without her. Even though my mom’s afraid, she’s not giving up.”

This is the beginning of a plea written by a 13-year-old girl to the Department of Homeland Security. The goal: to get her mother the insurance coverage she would need to enter a clinical trial.

Two years ago, the girl’s mother learned she had advanced stomach cancer. Undocumented and uninsured, the mother received free treatment at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan through New York’s emergency Medicaid program, which undoubtedly prolonged her life.

Then, last fall, her doctor identified her as a good candidate for a medicine that has been remarkably effective for some lung cancers. Would it work for her disease? The researchers were eager for patients like J. to help them answer that question. (Kaiser Health News is identifying the patient by her first initial only, because of the threat of deportation.)

“You look at these clinical trials — there are some patients who just forget to die,” said Dr. Steve Lee, J.’s oncologist. “She could be one of these long-term survivors.”

But it would not be a simple process for J. to enter a clinical trial. She emigrated from China 18 years ago on a visa that had long since expired. Her husband’s visa also expired years ago. The Queens couple have three children who are U.S. citizens, ages 13, 12 and 4.

To be accepted into the trial, J. needed the more complete coverage traditional Medicaid offers. And to get that meant declaring herself to Homeland Security and asking the agency not to act on its standing deportation order against her. That would call attention to herself and her status — and provide the agency with her address and the names of everyone she lived with.

Read the full article about undocumented immigrants' health care access by Kaiser Health News at Governing magazine.