Draft of new rules makes immigrants fearful of public benefits
Hundreds of thousands of immigrant parents in California may disenroll their children from health insurance, food stamps and other federally subsidized programs because they fear that receiving these benefits would make it impossible for them to become permanent residents in the United States.
Their fears have been triggered by new regulations proposed by the Trump administration that expand the number of benefits that immigration officers can take into account in deciding whether to deny an immigrant permanent residence in the United States. Federal law allows immigration officials to deny green cards to immigrants if authorities decide they are likely to become a “public charge” — someone who relies excessively on government benefits to survive.
The draft regulations are currently open for public comments until Dec. 10.
Administrators at community clinics, school-based health centers and agencies serving children say some parents in California are already choosing not to enroll or withdrawing their children from health and nutrition programs.
A parent asked First 5 Alameda County, an agency that supports families with young children, to stop seeking early intervention services from a local school district for the parent’s toddler with autism. A teenage mother in the Central Valley asked to withdraw from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, one month before giving birth. A grandmother in San Francisco asked North East Medical Services, a federally funded community clinic, to purge her grandchildren’s medical records.
“It’s causing fear, it’s causing confusion and it’s really impacting kids,” said Mayra Alvarez, president of The Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit children’s advocacy organization.
The Trump administration says it is simply carrying out the will of Congress in enacting the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which includes the “public charge” provision.
”This proposed rule will imple- ment a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant selfsufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in announcing the draft regulations this fall.
Under current long-standing policies, receipt of so-called “cash benefits” can be taken into account when immigration authorities decide whether to declare someone a “public charge,” and use that as a basis to approve or deny a greencard application. Cash benefits include Supplemental Security Income for low-income elderly and disabled people and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for low-income families with children.
The Trump administration is proposing regulations that would also for the first time include the receipt of some so-called “noncash benefits” as a basis to deny green cards.
Noncash benefits allow people to get health care, food, medicine and housing without receiving the money directly.
The administration is proposing to target the following benefits in the proposed regulation:
Medicaid (known in California as Medi-Cal); food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (CalFresh in California); Medicare Part D prescription drug program for seniors; housing assistance (such as Section 8 rent vouchers).
Numerous health and immigrant rights advocates oppose the changes, arguing that if immigrant families disenroll from health insurance, for example, they may forgo preventive care, develop more serious health problems and end up in an emergency room, at a greater cost to taxpayers.
The regulations would apply only to applicants for green cards. Undocumented immigrants are already barred from receiving the benefits the Trump administration is targeting.
Under the proposed regulations, benefits used by U.S. citizen children would not be taken into account in deciding whether to grant their parents permanent residence. Even so, the fear generated by the regulations could cause many immigrants to disenroll their children from receiving benefits.
That is what happened in 1996, after Congress placed strict limits on immigrants receiving benefits during the five years after they were granted green cards. The overall use of benefits by immigrants’ family members dropped precipitously, although they were still eligible to receive them. One study found that 25 percent of children with a foreign-born parent disenrolled from Medicaid.
Based on that drop in coverage, the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health policy organization, estimated the number of children who might disenroll from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, if between 15 and 35 percent of immigrant parents were to withdraw their children:
In California, this would mean between 269,000 and 628,000 children could be withdrawn from the programs, both known as Medi-Cal in the state, according to analysis by The Children’s Partnership. Between 113,000 and 311,000 children could be withdrawn from food stamps, known as CalFresh. The vast majority of these children are U.S. citizens.
In a recently released study, researchers at the Boston Medical Center found a 10 percent drop in immigrant families enrolled in food stamps in the first half of 2018. Researchers speculated that the drop might be attributable at least in part to concerns triggered by the proposed regulations.
“It’s kind of the same story over and over. Either they saw on the news that they were going to be penalized for using the program, or their immigration lawyer told them they’d be penalized,” said Sarah Diaz, policy and media coordinator for the California WIC Association, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization. “We’ve heard that people have asked to return their WIC vouchers [for groceries] or their breast pumps and be purged from the computer system entirely.”
Children’s advocates fear that a significant withdrawal from health care and nutrition programs would also have an impact on a child’s ability to succeed in school.
When we hear about families being nervous about services, it really concerns us about the future for their kids,” said Page Tomblin, senior policy administrator of First 5 Alameda County.