Green card holders: US rule change may scare families off public benefits

Trump administration plans to scrap detailed guidance, giving officers wider discretion and raising fears that families may avoid benefits they are entitled to

Green card holders and aspiring immigrants may soon find it harder to judge which public services they can safely access without risking their immigration status, as the Trump administration moves to rewrite how the US government applies the long-standing “public charge” test.

 

The administration is proposing to change how federal officials decide who should be barred from obtaining a green card or immigrating to the United States on the grounds that they are likely to become a public charge. The concept has been part of US immigration law for more than a century and has generally referred to people seen as mainly dependent on government support for basic needs.

   

What is changing in the public charge test

 

Under a proposed rule issued in November, the administration seeks to remove detailed regulatory guidance that it says constrains immigration officers when making public charge assessments. By withdrawing existing definitions and precedent on which public benefits should be considered, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would leave frontline officers with far broader discretion.

 

Why DHS wants to scrap existing guidance

 

DHS has argued that earlier regulations “straight-jacket” officers by setting out specific rules on which benefits matter and which do not. The new proposal would rescind those rules entirely, without immediately replacing them with a new framework.

 

According to Julia Gelatt, associate director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), removing earlier federal guidance would mean service providers could no longer give clear advice to immigrant families about which benefits are safe to use and which could affect future immigration options.

 

What families could lose access to:

 

1. Families may stop using public benefits they are eligible for due to fear over future immigration outcomes

 

2. Service providers may be unable to give clear advice on benefit use

 

3. US-citizen children in mixed-status households could lose access to food, healthcare, and income support

 

4. Confusion could further reduce already low benefit use among immigrant families

 

“The rule leaves open the possibility that even use of Head Start, free school lunch, care at Community Health Centers, or other programs could hurt future green-card applications,” she said in an MPI report.

 

She said the proposal would also remove language clarifying that public benefits used by family members do not count against green-card applicants. “If finalised as written, the administration’s sweeping moves could also jeopardise the use of public benefits by the US-citizen children of immigrants,” Gelatt wrote.

 

She added that families may avoid support even when eligible. “The likely result will be that many immigrant families will be afraid to access any public benefits for which a household member is eligible, forgoing supports in times of need to preserve future immigration prospects,” she wrote.

 

How public charge has worked historically

 

Federal law has barred the entry of people likely to become a public charge since 1882. Public charge assessments apply both to visa applicants outside the United States and to green-card applicants applying from within the country. Refugees, asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, and certain other humanitarian groups are exempt.

 

The term was not formally defined in regulation until 1999, when the Clinton administration clarified that a public charge referred to individuals “primarily dependent on the government for subsistence”. Assessments were limited to receipt of cash assistance, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or Supplemental Security Income, or long-term institutionalisation at government expense.

 

What changed under Trump’s first term

 

In 2019, DHS issued a regulation that broadened the public charge test to include people who received certain public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period. The rule set out which benefits would count and which would not.

 

It specified that benefits not listed in the regulation, benefits used by family members, benefits received before the rule took effect, and Medicaid use by children or during pregnancy would not be considered.

 

Why the chilling effect began even before enforcement

 

Although court challenges limited how long the rule was enforced, its announcement alone had an immediate impact. In December 2018, around one in seven adults in immigrant families said they or a relative had avoided public benefits due to immigration concerns. About 9 per cent of adults in US-citizen families reported similar behaviour.

 

MPI found that between 2016 and 2019, public benefit use fell twice as fast among US-citizen children living with noncitizens as among those living only with citizens, even though children’s benefit use was not part of public charge assessments.

 

How Biden restored the earlier definition

 

In 2021, the Biden administration reverted to the 1999 definition and formally codified it in regulation in 2022, narrowing the scope of benefits considered and restoring clearer guidance for applicants and service providers.

 

What the latest proposal would remove

 

The Trump administration is now seeking to revoke that 2022 regulation without issuing a replacement. DHS has said it will issue future guidance for adjudicators, but that guidance is unlikely to be released for public comment before taking effect.

 

Why mixed-status families could be most affected

 

Gelatt said removing clear guidelines could lead families to avoid any public benefit for which they are eligible, because neither households nor service providers would be able to predict what might affect a noncitizen’s future immigration prospects.

 

She said the chilling effect could exceed what was seen during the first Trump term for several reasons:

 

< The absence of any list of counted benefits leaves open whether childcare subsidies, public health programmes, or even the Earned Income Tax Credit could affect immigration decisions

< The proposal allows for the possibility that benefits used by family members could be weighed against an applicant

< The change comes alongside other policy shifts that already complicate benefits eligibility

 

“The proposed rule follows recent congressional cuts to key benefits programmes for refugees, asylees, humanitarian parolees, and other lawfully present immigrants, further complicating already confusing eligibility rules,” Gelatt said.

 

MPI estimates that 5.3 million US-citizen children were living in mid-2023 with an unauthorised immigrant parent. If even a small share of families in such households withdraw from benefits, hundreds of thousands of children could lose access to basic economic support.