Geneva, Mar 3 (IANS): Up to 20 per cent of the immigrants in the US do not have health insurance, an expert said here during the ongoing 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Immigrants' barriers to access health care include language, low education, low income, immigration status and lack of health insurance, Xinhua news agency quoted Liliana Osorio, director of the Health Initiative of the Americas at the University of California, as saying on Monday.

As a nation of immigrants, 44.7 million immigrants lived in the US in 2018, accounting for 13.7 per cent of America's population, she said.

Osorio added that the immigrants, however, have to face policies that limit their access to healthcare and public services.

"The health of a country is also the health of its immigrants," she stressed.

The expert also expressed concern over the US-Mexico border humanitarian crisis in 2019, saying that throughout the year, 850,000 migrants were apprehended, 70,000 unaccompanied children held in American detention, and 5,500 others forced to be separated from their parents.