Trump's rule creating a wealth test for immigrants is now in effect
Trump’s rule creating a wealth test for immigrants is now in effect
It’s already had a chilling effect on immigrants dropping out of public benefits programs.
By Nicole Narea@nicolenarea Updated Feb 24, 2020, 3:41pm EST
A rule that creates new barriers to low-income immigrants seeking to enter the US went into effect on Monday, bringing to fruition the kind of vast restrictions on legal immigration that President Donald Trump has long sought.
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Trump has justified the rule as a means of ensuring that immigrants are “financially self-sufficient” and has argued it will “protect benefits for American citizens.”
“I am tired of seeing our taxpayer paying for people to come into the country and immediately go onto welfare and various other things,” Trump said when announcing the rule. “So I think we’re doing it right.”
The rule, which has been anticipated for more than a year, has had a chilling effect already: Noncitizens have been needlessly dropping their public benefits out of fear that they will face immigration consequences. It’s difficult to quantify just how many immigrants have unenrolled already, but one survey suggested that about one in seven had done so as of 2018.
Many immigrants aren’t eligible for public benefits unless they have green cards or certain humanitarian protections — and not all public benefits are available to noncitizens. In the majority of cases, the best advice for immigrants is to keep using the programs to which they’re entitled because they won’t be penalized for doing so under the rule, Doug Rand, a former White House official who worked on immigration policy in the Obama administration, said.
more...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/11/20899253/trump-public-charge-rule-immigrants-welfare-benefits
