Rule Change Aims to Discourage Immigrant Families from Health, Food and Nutrition Services
Washington – The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security has issued a mean-spirited proposed regulation intended to yank vital publicly funded health care and other safety net services from individuals and families in the citizenship process.
“The president has said he does not want anyone dying in the streets during his presidency,” National Health Law Program Managing Attorney of the D.C. Office Mara Youdelman said. “Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s proposed rule-change would push immigrants further into the shadows, forcing many immigrant families to make unconscionable decisions like accessing vital services that support themselves and their families or ensuring they keep their families together by staying in the already arduous immigration process in the U.S.”
Youdelman continued, “The Trump administration is seeking to erect a wall around public benefits to immigrants, in another cruel attempt to dissuade immigration to the country and make life increasingly difficult for the immigrant families already here. The Homeland Security’s proposed regulation, promoting tired right-wing policy about self-sufficiency and wealth, would give sweeping authority for DHS to issue orders declaring that virtually any benefit an immigrant applies for or receives can be used to either bar the immigrant from our country or prevent them from obtaining a green card. This includes Medicaid and other vital public benefit services like SNAP and TANF.”
National Health Law Program’s Legal Director Jane Perkins said, “This move by the administration is a radical departure from decades-old federal policies that have consistently instructed federal immigration authorities not to consider the receipt of Medicaid or other public benefits that help provide a minimal standard of care to prevent someone from entering the U.S. or lead to deportation.
“The DHS proposed rule-change to longstanding policy would harm all of us. Our communities are less safe, secure and thriving when we deprive immigrants of services that better their lives and enable them to help enrich our communities.”
For more information, see resources from the Protecting Immigrant Families Advancing Our Future website; National Health Law Program is a member of this campaign.
Please contact the National Health Law Program Communications department at[email protected] or 202-552-5176 for further comment regarding the Trump administration’s latest anti-immigrant action.
National Health Law Program, founded in 1969, advocates for the rights of low-income and underserved people to access quality health care.
