The Department of Homeland Security announced on Thursday that it would be giving immigration officers broader authority to consider immigrants’ use of public benefits when deciding whether they qualify for permanent legal status.
The new final rule, which was issued on Thursday morning, is a reversal of a 2022 Biden-era rule that limited DHS to consider only cash welfare when considering public charge. Now, USCIS officers can consider a wider array of benefits, including applicant metrics such as age, health, and prior use of benefits ranging from housing and food assistance, when considering applications for legal permanent residence as well as immigrants seeking to enter the country.
“The Trump administration is upholding the rule of law and protecting American taxpayers from subsidizing aliens who may become dependent on public benefits,” USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement following the policy shift.
Advocates say the rule change could open the door for discrimination, particularly against mixed-status families. Adriana Cadena, the executive director of Protecting Immigrant Families, told NOTUS that people who are not directly targeted by the rule, such as U.S. citizen children of immigrants, could stop using needed benefits due to concerns about how that might affect their family members’ applications.
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“It’s going to have a tremendous impact on children who are legal citizens and who rely on benefits like health care and nutrition [benefits] in order to survive,” Cadena said. Part of the concern, she said, is over the vagueness of the rule, and the broad discretion it gives individual immigration officers to determine what may or may not constitute public charge.
“There’s a ripple impact of this rule,” Cadena continued. “In terms of when individuals can actually feel safe to apply to adjust their status to become green card holders, they’re going to think twice about that based on either prior use of benefits and based on the fact that their children need benefits because that’s how they can sustain and survive.”
The hundreds of thousands of immigrants who seek an adjustment of status each year would now be subject to a review on the new public charge grounds — though the number could be much higher based on the number of mixed-status families.
“The Trump administration is once again weaponizing the federal government to make immigrants afraid to go to the doctor, buy food at the grocery store, and even file taxes,” Sarah Krieger, the senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement. “With this new rule, they are sowing fear and chaos to ultimately reshape America into a country where only the few who are white and ultra-wealthy are welcome.”
Per the notice, the rule is expected to take full effect in 60 days.
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