Green card rule raises health flag

Plan will lead to sicker people, higher costs, experts warn

CHICAGO — Doctors and public health experts warn of poor health and rising costs that they say will come from changes that would deny green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, as well as food stamps and other forms of public assistance.

Some advocates say they’re already seeing the fallout even before the complex 837-page rule takes effect in October.

President Donald Trump’s administration trumpeted its aggressive approach last week as a way to keep only self-sufficient immigrants in the country, but health experts argue that it could force potentially millions of low-income migrants to choose between needed services and their bid to stay legally in the U.S.

“People are going to be sicker. They’re not going to go get health care, or not until they have to go to an emergency room,” said Lisa David, president and chief executive officer of Public Health Solutions, New York’s largest public health organization. “It’s going to cost the system a lot of money.”

Immigrants who want permanent legal status, commonly called a green card, have long been required to prove that they won’t be “a public charge.” The Trump administration announced Monday that it would redefine the term to mean those who are “more likely than not” to receive public benefits over a certain period. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will also now consider other factors, including income, education and English proficiency.

“We want to see people coming to this country who are self-sufficient,” said Ken Cuccinelli, the agency’s acting director. “That’s a core principle of the American dream. It’s deeply embedded in our history, and particularly our history related to legal immigration.”

Two California counties and attorneys general in 13 states sued, saying the changes will increase public health risks.

There are signs that is already happening in cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York, immigrant advocates say.

Within hours of the announcement, a Minnesota immigration attorney said she received a flurry of calls from worried clients about whether to leave Medicaid. A Detroit nonprofit helping Hispanics and migrants with social services said its usually jam-packed lobby was empty the day after the rules were unveiled. New York’s largest public health organization, Public Health Solutions, which serves a large immigrant population, reported a 20% drop in food stamps enrollment since the rule was first proposed in the fall.

There is precedent for such a chilling effect.

After 1996 welfare and immigration changes that limited public assistance for some immigrants, the use of benefits dropped steeply among U.S. citizen children and refugees, groups who were still eligible. Studies based on data after that change showed that people disenrolled from Medicaid at rates ranging from 15% to 35%, according to Harvard University’s Francois-Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. And, it found, that that came at a high cost: Asthma-related school absences in 1996 led to $719 million in lost parental productivity.

Federico Mason, who immigrated from Mexico over two decades ago, said he is worried about the new criteria because he is low-income and doesn’t speak English well. The Chicago resident said he has no immediate plans to remove his 8- and 15-year-old sons, who are U.S. citizens, from Medicaid, but the new rule has made him more fearful about providing for his family and about applying for a green card.

“If one day I want to adjust my status, it will be more difficult because of these unfair policies that continue to discriminate against me,” he said in Spanish.

Overall, non-citizen low-income migrants use public benefits at a much lower rate than low-income U.S.-born citizens, but there’s the possibility that millions of people could drop benefits out of fear or confusion. Estimates vary. It could be as high as 24 million people, according to the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute, which includes in its count anyone in a family that has received food, health or housing support and where at least one person is a non-citizen.

Dr. Deanna Behrens, a pediatric critical-care physician in suburban Chicago who wrote public testimony opposing the rule change, said children are the most vulnerable.

She said non-citizen parents might hesitate to apply for their children who are U.S. citizens, mistakenly fearing that if their children get benefits it will destroy their own chances of getting a green card and tear their families apart. That will lead to people being unable to afford care for chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes, as well as preventative measures.

“This has forced the immigrant families into an impossible choice,” Behrens said.