Q&A – The “Public Charge” Rules

Today’s entry: Do you think MSM’s spin on Trump’s immigration policy is intentional or just their natural bias coming out? THANK YOU for speaking the truth!

Bottom Line: Intentional and I’ll explain why but first, let’s set the premise of this question. This note comes on back a Miami Herald story from Friday, Low-income immigrants are at a greater risk of deportation starting Monday. The story, about the Trump administration’s enforcement of the “Public Charge” policy regarding those using/seeking VISA’s, could have also have been positioned as “Trump administration to curb VISA and green card abuse”, Feds to enforce VISA and green card policies”, etc. Instead, they opted for a message that's misleading at best with implicit bias behind it. 

Here’s how the story begins, "Starting Monday, low-income immigrants who are on public benefits— or will one day need them— will be denied a visa or green card, despite having entered the U.S. legally. The Trump administration’s new “public charge rule” — which favors wealthier immigrants seeking permanent status and puts the poor at a disadvantage, analysts and scholars say— will keep people who need food stamps, housing vouchers, Supplemental Social Security Income and Medicaid from getting their green cards because they’d be considered a financial burden to the U.S."

The first sentence of the story is based on a false premise. It’s not lawful for people to enter the US on VISA’s or green cards without being self-sustaining, free of federal assistance programs, several states including Florida do allow to state-issued assistance programs to be made available. The next important point left out of this story altogether, what’s happening today is an update of a law that’s been in place since 1882. The Public Charge law states those with temporary status, VISA’s and green card holders, are to be denied to “any person unable to take care of him/herself without becoming a public charge”. In simple to understand language, the law was created to prevent people from coming here on work VISA’s and green cards and setting up shop on government assistance programs instead of using their status to be accretive to our society. 

There have been four updates to the law, most recently in 1999. Clearly a lot has changed in 21 years including the income threshold to avoid becoming a burden to American taxpayers. Starting today, the income threshold to not be in violation is $60,000 for a family of four, up from $32,000 previously. This does not apply to anyone except those in the United States on temporary work status. There were legal challenges to these changes brought against this rule change, however, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration, so this is now in force. As was cited in the Herald story eventually, an estimated 26% of those on temporary status in Florida, or 1.2 million people, are on at least one assistance program. In other words, though the story never said it, those are the people in Florida violating the terms of their VISA/green card status. Those would be the people potentially in the cross-hairs of the public charge enforcement that begins today. 

Submit your questions using one of these methods. 

Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com

Twitter: @brianmuddradio

Facebook: Brian Mudd https://www.facebook.com/brian.mudd1

Photo by: Alex Wong/Getty Images


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