#uTv4ever #US #immigration #Trump Facebook:
blog:
Youtube:
Twitter:
Trump administration tightens rule that could deny green cards, citizenship to immigrants who need public assistance.
Legal immigrants who use public benefits — such as Medicaid, food stamps or housing assistance — could have a tougher time obtaining a green card or U.S. citizenship under a policy change announced Monday that is at the center of the Trump administration’s effort to reduce immigration.
The new policy for “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds,” which appeared Monday on the Federal Register’s website and will take effect in two months, sets new standards for obtaining permanent residency and U.S. citizenship. The Trump administration has been seeking to limit those immigrants who might draw on taxpayer-funded benefits, such as many of those who have been fleeing Central America, while allowing more highly skilled and wealthy immigrants into the United States.
Wealth, education, age and English-language skills will take on greater importance in the process for obtaining a green card, as the change seeks to redefine what it means to be a “public charge,” as well as who is likely to be one under U.S. immigration law.
Analysts say the policy could dramatically reduce family-based legal immigration to the United States, particularly from Mexico, Central America and Africa, where economies have been suffering and incomes are lower.
The rule effectively circumvents earlier, failed efforts by the administration to build support in Congress for a similar “merit-based” overhaul to the immigrant visa system, and fulfills a longtime goal of senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller and other immigration hawks who have long sought new bureaucratic tools to reduce immigration levels.
The new rule — from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security — focuses on the obscure definition of what it means to be a “public charge,” or someone dependent of U.S. government benefits, and who is “likely” to become one.
Likeliness of becoming a public charge already is grounds to be denied a green card or the opportunity to become a U.S. citizen.
The Trump administration will broaden the public charge definition to encompass not just those primarily dependent on public assistance programs, but anyone who uses a public benefit, including publicly funded health care programs including Medicaid, food stamps, other nutrition-related programs, or housing assistance.
But the new rule stands to have its most dramatic impact on the numbers and demographics of those permitted to immigrate to the United States through a vast array of new criteria to assess whether an individual is “likely” to someday become a public charge.
Factors that can count against a green card applicant include having “a medical condition” that will interfere with work or school; not having enough money to cover “any reasonably foreseeable medical costs” related to such a medical condition; having “financial liabilities;” having been approved to receive a public benefit, even if the individual has not actually received the benefit; having a low credit score; the absence of private health insurance; the absence of a college degree; not having the English language skills “sufficient to enter the job market;” or having a sponsor who is “unlikely” to provide financial support.
“With one regulation, they are attempting to scratch two itches: one is penalizing immigrants for using public benefits that they are legally entitled to, and the other is cutting legal immigration in half,” said Doug Rand, a former Obama administration official and an immigration consultant. “And the way you cut legal immigration in half is by kicking the doors out from the definition of ‘likely to become a public charge.’”
************** DISCLAIMER **************
This channel may use some copyrighted materials without specific authorization of the owner but contents used here falls under the “Fair Use” Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. If you have any advice, suggestion, claim or quarry, please contact with us on: utv4ever@gmail.com.
0 Comments