The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), posted on February 19 an advance version of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would regulate how DHS applies the “public charge” test to deny temporary admission into the U.S. or deny requests to change one’s status to lawful permanent resident (i.e., green card holder). A formal version of the proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register in the coming days.
A quick review of the 291-page document and prior statements from DHS suggest that the proposed rule does not include harmful provisions introduced by the Trump administration. Those provisions would judge a non-U.S. citizen or legal resident a public charge if they receive or might receive housing assistance in the form of public housing, a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher, or Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA). NLIHC will provide further details after immigration experts have more thoroughly reviewed the proposed rule.
The “public charge” test has been part of federal immigration law for more than one hundred years. The test is designed to identify people who might depend on the government as their main source of support in the future. A “public charge” is a non-citizen seeking admission into the U.S. or an adjustment of their existing legal status to legal permanent resident (LPR) and who is or who is likely to become ‘‘primarily dependent on the government for subsistence, as demonstrated by either (i) the receipt of public cash assistance for income maintenance or (ii) institutionalization for long-term care at government expense.’’
USCIS long relied on a 1999 Interim Field Guidance document to assess public charge status. The 1999 guide considered only cash assistance for income maintenance and institutionalization for long-term care at government expense when weighing whether someone was or might become a public charge. In effect, the 1999 guidance meant that public charge mainly applied if more than 50% of someone’s income was (or would be) from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
The Trump administration proposed radical changes to the public charge rule on October 10, 2018 (see Memo, 10/15/18). After a court order on March 9, 2021, vacated the harmful Trump administration amendments, DHS under the Biden administration announced that DHS and USCIS would follow the policy in the 1999 Interim Field Guidance (see Memo, 3/22/21). Consequently, neither utility assistance, nor assistance provided through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Medicaid, nor federal, state, or local housing assistance will be considered when assessing whether someone might be a public charge; nor will other detrimental provisions proposed by the previous administration be considered.
Read the advance version of the proposed rule at: https://bit.ly/3IbG72I
Find the USCIC Public Charge website at: https://www.uscis.gov/public-charge
Read about public charge on page 6-55 of NLIHC’s 2021 Advocates’ Guide.
Follow public charge updates and read more about public charge on the Protecting Immigrant Families (PIF) website at: https://protectingimmigrantfamilies.org