The Week (US)

What is the public charge rule?

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With a large number of rule changes. Rules for applying for asylum have been tightened, forcing 60,000 people to wait in camps in Mexico as their applicatio­ns are processed. The administra­tion has capped the admissible number of refugees fleeing violence or persecutio­n at a historic low of 18,000, down from 110,000 in 2016. In January, Trump expanded his travel ban to 13 countries, including Nigeria, which accounted for almost 8,000 visas during the 2018 fiscal year. Also in 2018, officials announced they would begin summarily rejecting applicatio­ns for visas and green cards that contained any mistakes or missing documents, without allowing the applicant to correct the error. Average wait times on the processing of such applicatio­ns had doubled by the end of 2018, and officials are now insisting in most cases on in-person interviews. “He’s really ticking off all the boxes,” said Sarah Pierce, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a nonpartisa­n research group. “In an administra­tion that’s been perceived to be haphazard, on immigratio­n they’ve been extremely consistent and barreling forward.” The public charge rule is another example of the White House’s efforts to restrict legal immigratio­n.

Reportedly “a singular obsession” of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, it could prove the most significan­t change to immigratio­n policy yet. Originally, the public charge rule was part of the

They are being raised across the board, in an apparent attempt to dissuade the poor from even applying. There’s a new $50 fee on applicatio­ns for asylum, for example, which many destitute people fleeing drug gangs or political persecutio­n can’t pay. In November, Trump issued a proclamati­on that all green card applicants had to prove to a consular officer that they plan to buy health insurance within 30 days of their arrival, or that they have sufficient funds for medical care. The order has been stayed by a federal judge pending a challenge, but if enacted, it would affect about 375,000 legal immigrants a year, or two-thirds of the total.

Worsening a labor shortage

Critics claim that Trump’s immigratio­n policies are making an existing labor shortage worse. In January, before the disruption caused by the new coronaviru­s, the Labor Department released data showing that U.S. employers were trying to fill 7.5 million vacant positions, while only 6.5 million people were looking for jobs. It was the 11th month in a row that open positions outnumbere­d applicants, a reversal of a 20-year trend. Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney conceded the dilemma in February. “We are desperate, desperate for more people,” he said. “We created 215,000 jobs last month. We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth.” Complicati­ng the issue is that much of the need is for low-skilled labor such as home health care and restaurant and hotel work, which college-educated Americans are disincline­d to do. “The U.S. economy needs low-skilled immigrants much more than high-skilled immigrants,” said Alexia Fernandez Campbell in Vox.com. “Businesses are having a much harder time finding constructi­on workers, restaurant cooks, and hotel housekeepe­rs than computer engineers and doctors,” yet those are types of workers that Trump’s proposed “merit-based” system disfavors.

What else is in store?

Last spring, the administra­tion released a proposal for a “merit-based” revamp of the existing immigratio­n system. It would, if enacted by Congress, award applicants “eligibilit­y points” based on criteria such as English fluency, whether they have existing job offers, profession­al skills, education level, and age, as well as a category called “patriotic assimilati­on,” which might include a test on historical texts like George Washington’s farewell address. The plan, spearheade­d by Trump’s sonin-law Jared Kushner, would rebrand green cards as “Build America” visas. Doug Rand, an Obama immigratio­n adviser, called the plan an attempt to reverse the policies that enabled most Americans’ ancestors to come to this country. “Never before in our history have we closed off the American dream to strivers who aren’t already middle class,” he said.

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