US expands ‘public charge’ rule, creates fresh hurdles for green card seekers from Sept 18

Washington, Aug 19 (PTI) Immigrants seeking green cards or permanent residency in the US will face fresh hurdles as the Trump administration has expanded the definition of "public charge" to deny applications to those availing benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps or any subsistence aid from the government.

The new rule finalised by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) comes into effect from September 18 and will also hit Indians seeking green cards.

An earlier rule only considered two types of public benefits as grounds for denying a green card application: cash assistance for income maintenance and long-term institutionalisation at the government's expense.

“To make public charge inadmissibility determinations, USCIS officers will consider the five statutory factors and any other factor relevant to assessing the alien's likelihood at any time of becoming a public charge, including the alien’s receipt of means-tested public benefits, such as cash assistance for income maintenance, housing assistance, food stamps, financial aid for college, or any other similar benefit,” an official statement said.

The guidance follows the Department of Homeland Security's decision to rescind the 2022 Biden-era public charge regulations. The final rule was announced on July 16 and published in the Federal Register on July 20.

It will apply to Forms I-485 seeking permanent residence or adjustment of status that are postmarked or electronically submitted on or after September 18.

The new rule allows USCIS officers to count age, health, family status, finances, educational background, and even the use of public benefits by an applicant’s dependents, regardless of that dependent's status, against that applicant’s chances for approval.

If a USCIS officer finds that an alien applying for adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident in the United States is inadmissible only because they are likely at any time to become a public charge, the USCIS officer may invite the alien to post a public charge bond.

"The public charge rule would provide even more discretion to officers to deny adjustment of status applications in light of the USCIS memo that indicates that adjustment of status requires extraordinary discretion,” according to an analysis by immigration attorneys Cyrus Mehta and Damira Zhanatova.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organisation working in healthcare, about 13.5 million Medicaid or CHIP enrollees live with at least one non-citizen, including 5.6 million citizen children, who may be at risk for decreased enrollment.

The analysis found that between 1.4 million and 4.1 million Medicaid and CHIP enrollees living with a noncitizen might quit the programme due to the new public charge rule.

However, a large number of applicants are exempt from the new public charge rule.

The exemptions include refugees and asylees, certain Afghan and Iraqi nationals who worked with or for the US government, certain Cuban and Haitian entrants, special immigrant juveniles, victims of human trafficking, victims of qualifying criminal activity, certain Violence Against Women Act self-petitioners and applicants for Temporary Protected Status, among others.

Of the nearly 1.2 million people who received a green card in 2023, about 78,100 (7 per cent) were from India. That year, 60 per cent of Indians who received a green card did so either as an immediate relative of a US citizen or green-card holder or as another family member of a citizen. PTI