August 12, 2019: Positive Women’s Network-USA (PWN-USA) unequivocally condemns the latest development in the Trump Administration’s campaign of terror against immigrant communities. Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule seeking to further intimidate and punish some immigrants just because they use public programs that are supposed to help us meet our everyday needs, like healthcare, housing and nutrition programs – even if they are legally eligible for these programs. The rule could also bar people living with HIV, other chronic health conditions, and people with low incomes from becoming U.S. citizens.   

The change concerns the “public charge” rule, an immigration legal term from the days of the Immigration Act of 1882 — the same year Chinese immigrants were banned.  The new rule departs significantly from long-standing policy. It grossly extends impact of “public charge” to apply to people who have received even modest benefits from a much broader range of public programs, including Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) and some federal housing programs, like Section 8. The rule also gives DHS the discretion to openly discriminate against – and close the door to — people living with HIV and people with low incomes. 

While the majority of immigrants are not eligible for the public benefits in question, the consequence–and the intention–behind the rule change are to intimidate eligible U.S. residents from accessing benefits, including health care and food for their children, out of fear that it may threaten their own or other family members’ immigration status. This “chilling effect” has already been devastating. One in seven immigrant families reported avoiding public benefits in 2018 – before the rules were even in effect.  

The public charge regulations are another example of the Trump Administration’s dehumanization of immigrant communities. We are in the midst of rampant and escalating attacks on immigrants in the U.S. – from mass ICE raids tearing families apart to inhumane immigration detention and deportation policies to white nationalist terrorists. These changes will only fuel the toxic, racist narratives about who deserves to live in this country and will only exacerbate racial, health, and economic disparities. 

The regulation will force millions of families – primarily those from Black, Latinx and Asian countries – to choose between the things they need and the people they love. The Trump Administration is trying to drive home the message that people of color will not be safe and accepted in the U.S. PWN-USA stands with our allies in opposition to white terror, to xenophobia, and to this public charge rule.  

You can join PWN-USA and allies to fight back to protect immigrant families! The rule is slated to go into effect on October 15 (if it is not stopped in the courts first). That gives us 60 days to tell Congress they must pass the No Federal Funds for Public Charge Act, H.R. 3222, which would prohibit the use of any federal funds from going to the Trump Administration’s cruel, racist public charge rule.  

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