President Donald Trump’s administration may be creating a difficult choice for low-income immigrants who could be denied green cards by seeking public assistance to feed and access healthcare for their U.S.-born children.
Under the “public charge” rule — which the administration plans to put in place on Sept. 18 — a person could be denied permanent residency in the United States if immigration officers believe the individual would become a drain on the country by accessing government benefits, which could include SNAP, Medicaid, and housing vouchers.
In Philadelphia and throughout the region, the rule, though not yet official, is nevertheless having a chilling effect, frightening parents who are legal immigrants into avoiding public benefits for their children, say advocates who work with immigrants and low-income communities.
“It could prevent families from going to food cupboards, or keep women from accessing domestic violence shelters. The effect will be broad,” said Maripat Pileggi, an attorney with Community Legal Services in Center City.
Advocates say the administration’s public charge rule could have a major impact on so-called mixed-status families made up of immigrant adults awaiting green cards and their children who are U.S. citizens.
Immigrant parents have customarily been permitted to apply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as well as Medicaid and housing assistance on behalf of their children, as long as they were not seeking help for themselves.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said people in the United States legally “have nothing to fear” and reiterated that U.S. policy has been that immigrants “should not depend on U.S. taxpayer resources to meet their needs.”
As the Trump administration pursues its highly public crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the rule highlights ways in which its policies have also targeted all immigrants, including ones on track for lawful permanent residency.
“They throw another hurdle people have to worry about into their path, making America seem less desirable,” said Jeff DeCristofaro, executive director of the Camden Center for Law and Justice.
“What happens next is people gathering around their kitchen table and deciding it’s too difficult to be in this country. So they give up and self-deport.”
DeCristofaro said his organization, which provides free and low-cost legal services to individuals with low incomes, is “already getting calls from people who have to make agonizing choices.”
What is the public charge rule?
The public charge rule dates back to the Immigration Act of 1891, when entry to the United States was denied to people who could not take care of themselves, primarily “paupers.”
In 1999, the Clinton administration clarified the public charge to deny entry to a person who would be primarily dependent on the government for cash subsistence, such as TANF (previously known as welfare), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or long-term Medicaid. However, the guidance explicitly said that noncash benefits such as SNAP, non-long-term Medicaid, or housing help would not be considered public charge determinations.
But near the end of Trump’s first term, the public charge definition was expanded to penalize green card applicants for using legal public benefits such as Medicaid of any kind, SNAP, and housing assistance. President Joe Biden later rescinded Trump’s version of the public charge, reestablishing the earlier iteration of the rule.
Currently, the Trump administration’s second version of the public charge rule does not explicitly state which benefits will be penalized. Advocates, however, expect a return to 2019 standards.
The Department of Homeland Security has calculated that more than 950,000 individuals will either disenroll from public benefits or forgo enrollment into them because of the policy, according to the Federal Register.
Ann Sanders, the director of public benefits policy at Just Harvest, an anti-hunger nonprofit in Allegheny County, worries the disenrollments will exacerbate the already growing demands on food pantries in the state.
“You’re going to have kids going hungry because parents will be trying to keep families together by not going for SNAP benefits,” she said. “It’s insidious. It’s awful.”
The fear among advocates is that by not delineating the public benefits that can trip up a legal immigrant, U.S. immigration officers will be free to use the public charge rule in any way they see fit, which could severely limit the number of people accepted into the country.
That is not the best way to assess the policy, according to Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, a conservative think tank created by former Vice President Mike Pence.
“It allows immigration officers to take a holistic view of the alien being considered for a green card. The old rules about obtaining cash and noncash benefits were rigid,” said von Spakovsky, who was a contributor to Project 2025, a more than 900-page document intended to serve as a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second presidency.
He called the public charge rule an important tool for determining who should obtain a green card, a major step toward U.S. citizenship. “We want immigrants to be productive members helping the economy without relying on benefits,” von Spakovsky said. “It’s a matter of being more selective.”
The public charge rule is expected to be challenged in court before the end of the summer.
Jonathan Grode, an immigration attorney in Center City and adjunct law professor at Temple University, argued the policy stems from one of the goals of Project 2025, which is to reduce all immigration, not just illegal entry into the country.
“What’s in the rule is secondary to the rule’s primary purpose: changing people’s idea to come to this country in the first place,” Grode said.
