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The Trump administration follows a long-standing plan make it harder for immigrants to get green cards if they are poor or could become poor.
The proposal is a double blow that could scare people away from safety net programs and prevent immigrants from leaving the country, with the added benefit of simultaneously demonizing immigrants and welfare.
"This is an opportunity to fuel the fire of nativists and scapegoats as a drain on our economy, "said Wendy Cerv.antes, Senior Policy Analyst for the Center for Social Policy and Law, a non-partisan organization working to improve the lives of low-income people.
The US government has almost always adopted a rule against legal permanent resident status for anyone who could become a "public office", that is, a person likely to lose their well-being. the proposed rule, which would take effect for at least 60 days and could be amended, would broaden the criteria the government can use to deny candidates.
The proposal will probably frighten immigrants and even prevent them from applying for benefits that would not hurt their chances of winning a green card, said Cervantes, including food stamps for their children. Already officials from several states have reported sharp declines in enrollment in the infant nutrition program that they attribute to previous press reports on the possibility of a new rule of "public office". (The proposed final rule only considers an individual's use of public benefits, not the use by his or her dependents.)
Experts said that it is impossible to estimate how many people will be affected by the rule, but some said it could be millions – some directly because they would be denied green card, others indirectly because they feared or because a family member was kept apart.
The Department of Homeland Security said in its proposal that more than 324,000 people would be removed from the benefits of the safety net "because of concerns about the consequences for the person benefiting from public benefits and likely to become a public accusation". federal government more than $ 2 billion a year. (This represents less than 1% of what the government spends each year on food and health benefits for the poor.) The proposed rule would not make these people ineligible for public benefits. they were qualified for it.
Cervantes said the proposal as written would affect several million people if you count family members of a program beneficiary. For example, more than 40% of the approximately 40 million recipients of food stamps in the United States are children whose parents receive benefits on their behalf.
Immigrants may be concerned about including their families in certain benefits even if they would not have a negative impact on a future immigration decision, either because of confusion over what they include or fear senior vice president of the Center for American Progress, which works on issues of poverty.
"People are confused, and the stakes are too high for them to make an educated guess," Boteach said. "I think there is a sense that even if you are technically exempt, who knows what they will do next?"
Undocumented immigrants and people with work visas are not eligible for most federal benefits, and green card holders are only eligible after five years. The proposal would not affect candidates for US citizenship. It is aimed primarily at people abroad who hope to be reunited with family members living in the United States and those who are already living here and are looking for green cards.
During the 2017 fiscal year, the State Department initially denied more than 280,000 immigrant visa applications. Of these, only 3,200 were refused for reasons of public office, according to the Congressional Research Service (most of these refusals were resolved on appeal). Cervantes said that the number of public refusals would probably be very high under the new proposal.
the current guidelines on public royalties considers the age, education, heritage, and professional status of a person, as well as their current enrollment in a small number of state and federal programs. Republicans have long complained that larger programs, such as food stamps and Medicaid, were excluded. The Trump administration rule would broaden the criteria to include most of the benefits of the federal safety net.
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, said in a statement that he would "enforce a law passed by Congress to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect limited resources by ensuring that They do not become a burden to US taxpayers ".
According to current guidelines, an immigrant would only be considered a public office if it is likely to depend "primarily" on government assistance, which means more than 50% of his income. The new rule would lower the threshold for receipt of government benefits to 15% of the poverty line for a given year.
David Bier, an expert at the Libertarian Institute Cato, said that "the probable" written in an analysis of the proposal.
"They're just very vague about how all this will go down," Bier said in an interview. "So, inevitably, what we will see when this rule is applied, these are only extremely variable results depending on the person who referees the requests."
Roque Planas contributed to the report.
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