What's up, 2019?: Trump wants to deport public benefit recipients

INSTAGRAM / TAMMY DUCKWORTH

Illinois' Sen. Tammy Duckworth with her parents, depended on public assistance when they first arrived in the U.S.

FOR ILLINOIS Sen. Tammy Duckworth, this fight is personal. When she, her brother and father arrived in Hawaii in 1984, they had to seek government assistance.

"We showed up in Hawaii with like $300 to our name," Duckworth told CBS News. "If my family did not have access to food stamps, I would've dropped out of high school and I don't know where I would be today — but I would probably not be a United States senator."

“This proposal is as heartless as it is dangerous. My family teetered on the brink of homelessness when I was in high school and relied on food stamps to survive. My own mother is an immigrant—and if this proposal had been in place during those years, my family could’ve been forced to choose between her citizenship and going hungry," Duckworth continued in a statement.

EDITOR'S NOTE: What's Up, 2019: is part of series of posts about issues facing the AAPI community in the coming year.

“No family should have to face that choice. No one should have to decide between seeking urgently needed health care—or shelter, or food—and getting ripped away from their loved ones. This proposal isn’t just unfair. It’s cruel, unacceptable and un-American,” she said.

Duckworth's opposition to a proposed rule by the Trump administration that would prevent many low-income immigrants who use public benefits from obtaining U.S. residency is deeply rooted in her personal experience.

The Trump administration is now considering a rule change that would significantly expand the definition of a "public charge" and would make it more difficult for certain low-income immigrants to secure permanent residency or temporary visas.

“This is an issue because a lot of the immigrants when they first come here, they need a little bit of federal assistance in order to get their foot in America and build themselves up and so this policy proposal, if it passes, will affect 23 million immigrants who are looking to get a green car,.” said Thu Nguyen, senior communications associate at OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, one of about a dozen of non-profit organizations participating in the campaign, named OneNation,

In its war against immigrants -- especially low-income immigrants -- is not only directed against  undocumented immigrants. He wants strict enforcement of the law that would kick out immigrants who receive public assistance.

The "public charge" term is used by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to describe a person whom the government believes will rely on government welfare programs for subsistence. People who fall into this category are deemed inadmissible to the U.S. "on public charge grounds."

“The public charge, simply put, is a way to prevent immigrants from becoming legal permanent residents based on whether or not they use public support, even if temporarily,” said Dr. Tung Nguyen, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and the former chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the Obama administration.

My parents often would "sponsor" family members who wished to immigrate to the U.S. under the H-1B or student visa and there was a question that asked my parents to guarantee that the person they were sponsoring would not be a burden to the U.S. So I grew up with a steady stream of immigrants transitioning to the U.S. or waiting for school to start or a job to begin or just acculturating themselves to a new country. Thank goodness for a convertible couch.

Under current policy, immigration officers can deny green cards if, among other things, an applicant has used cash aid like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as welfare, or Supplemental Security Income, which helps the elderly, blind and disabled who have little or no income.

But the Trump administration wants to expand who could be defined as a public charge — it wants to include past or current use of Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8 housing assistance, and a Medicare low-income subsidy for prescription drugs.

To be clear, immigrants will not be penalized for use of those safety net programs before the final rule is published, if it survives its legal challenges. Immigrants will be given 60 days after publication to drop programs they believe will affect their immigration case, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national nonprofit legal advocacy group.

Trump administration officials say the proposal is just enforcing a rule that was already in place.  The old rule was aimed at promoting what they call “self-sufficiency” for those admitted into the U.S.

“Self-sufficiency has long been a basic principle of the United States immigration law,” the proposal says.

Kirstjen Nielsen, DHS secretary, told NBC News recently that the rule would “promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.”

THE CHILDREN'S PARTNERSHIP

"The proposed public charge regulations pose a cruel choice for families who now have to balance keeping their families together with seeking medical care, putting food on the table, or keeping a roof over their heads," said Doreena Wong, Health Access Project Director at Advancing Justice-LA. "We know there's a lot of fear, but we urge everyone to stay enrolled in any public benefit program you need to keep your family healthy."

Annually, about 40% of green card holders are from Asian and Pacific Island nations, and family sponsorship accounts for most of them. Many community members have heard about the proposed changes, which have caused much confusion, anxiety, and fear. Already, the proposed regulation has cast a "chilling effect" on the community.

"Seventy-seven percent of our patients are on Medi-Cal, 62% are Asian, and they're primarily low-income," said Penny Chen, member and Community Service Manager at Asian Pacific Health Care Ventures. "Many of our patients are scared and confused because of the proposed public charge rule. Even patients who are green card holders do not want to apply for Medi-Cal. These proposed rules will only make our broken health care system worse."

"Even before the proposed public charge rules were posted, many members of our South Asian clients were not applying for public benefits in fear that it would adversely affect their immigration status," said Shikha Bhatnagar, executive director of South Asian Network. "Even mothers are refusing to get food stamps for their U.S. citizen children because they are so frightened."

Sherry Hirota, CEO of California-based Asian Health Services, called the proposed regulation both “unfair” and “un-American.”

“This country is built on immigrants, and that to deny immigrants — legal immigrants, tax-paying immigrants — the ability to access services when they need it, even in a small amount, is really something that will be detrimental to our country,” Hirota said.

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