White House changes rules on green card holders on fed benefits
WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday again answered a chorus of criticism by pivoting to a hard-line immigration policy, even though it could drive away independent voters in key battleground states.
With the commander in chief on his third full day of a 10-day “working vacation” at his New Jersey golf resort, the White House deployed Acting Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli for a rare session with reporters in the James A. Brady Briefing Room — a briefing that came two days after former Trump friend and alleged child sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell.
Cuccinelli, the former Virginia state attorney general, outlined a new rule that would block an unspecified number of migrants from obtaining green cards if they benefit from certain federal assistance programs.
The federal rule change, which goes into effect Oct. 14, targets migrants he said are deemed a “public charge” or likely to become one, he said. Cuccinelli called it an attempt to maintain the country’s value of “self-sufficiency.”
“Throughout our history, self-reliance has been a core principle in America, the virtues of perseverance, hard work. Self-sufficiency laid the foundation of our nation and defined generations of immigrants seeking opportunity in the United States,” said Cuccinelli.
He said migrants applying for green cards must be able to mirror his own Italian migrant ancestors, whom he said “worked together to ensure they could provide for their own needs — and they never expected the government to do it.” Later, while taking questions from reporters, he gave a verbal nod to the toughness of the new rule when he said “a poor person can be prepared to be selfsufficient.”
“Many have been through the history of this country,” he said a few moments after being asked if the “public charge” change — which Cuccinelli noted was possible because Congress has never defined the term in law and no previous administration did so via regulation — means this inscription on the Statue of Liberty should be taken down: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
His response: “Well, I’m certainly not prepared to take anything down off the Statue of Liberty . ... We have a long history of being one of the most welcoming nations in the world on a number of basises.”
Calling the “modern welfare state” too “expensive,” he said the rule would apply to around 400,000 people a year who will be subjected to a “meaningful analysis” of “whether they’re likely to become a public charge.”