New York is the ninth-easiest state for undocumented immigrants to live in — behind California, Minnesota and even Texas, a new study found.

UCLA researchers ranked states based on public health, higher education, access to driver’s licenses and other policies to find the healthiest places for people without papers.

“The fact is there’s a lot more that New York could do, given what other states have done,” said Steven Wallace, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Texas edged out New York partly because the southern state — like California, Illinois, Minnesota and New Mexico — offers both in-state tuition and state-financed financial aid to all students who graduate from high school in the state, regardless of immigration status.

Immigrant college students have pushed for access to the New York State Tuition Assistance Program, but a bill extending access — the DREAM Act — has stalled in Albany and was bumped from the state’s budget this spring.

 “We always say the New York State Dream Act is at that bottleneck. If it does not pass, no other legislation that can improve the lives of undocumented immigrants can pass,” said Christina Chang, Immigration Advocacy Manager at umbrella group the New York State Immigration Coalition.

The Empire State offers relatively generous health policies, however -- providing health insurance for kids regardless of immigration status, allowing pregnant undocumented women to qualify for Medicaid and including an entire family's size (not just legal residents) when calculating food stamp eligibility, researchers said

Ohio — trailed closely by Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Mississippi and West Virginia, which all tied for second-to-last — is the most difficult state to live in without immigration papers, the researchers concluded.

Source: NY Daily News