Immigrant rule unfair
Quietly, the Trump administration has extended its war on undocumented immigration to legal immigration, too.
The latest example was announced last Saturday. The administration presented a drastic new rule for legal immigrants: those who exercise their legal right to use public benefits — including food assistance, housing vouchers, and even Medicare’s prescription drug plan — may be denied green cards.
The administration claims the new regulation, which would affect about 382,000 people a year, will keep out people who are a drain on the country.
“This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers,” said Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.
On the contrary, the rule change represents a new and radical direction for federal immigration officials.
While federal law has long required immigrants seeking green cards to prove they won’t be a burden to taxpayers — and taken things like the acceptance of cash benefits into account — the government has never considered the acceptance of public benefits like food stamps or Medicaid. Doing so is egregious. Many legal immigrants are already paying into the very public benefit programs that the Trump administration would prevent them from using. Studies have shown that immigrants overall pay more in taxes than they receive from many of the nation’s public benefit programs, like Medicare.
The new rule is likely to have its most dramatic impact on immigrant children.
Immigrant advocates have sounded the alarm on the new rule out of concern that low-wage immigrant workers will withdraw their children from benefit programs in order to keep their families together in the U.S. Depriving children of nutritional and medical benefits isn’t just morally repugnant, it will result in higher taxpayer costs down the road.
The administration is also preparing another attack on legal immigrants. In a Sept. 21 court filing, the Department of Homeland Security said it was reviewing a rule to revoke the right of H-1B visa holders’ spouses to work in the U.S. It’s just another dangerous sign that the administration is seeking to restrict all kinds of immigration, regardless of the cost.