Understanding the New Public Charge Rule
For over a year, the Trump administration has been developing a policy change to make it more difficult for immigrants to successfully obtain permanent residency in the United States, or their "green cards." The new public charge rule has come under intense criticism by immigration advocates. USCIS officials said the revised standards would apply to nearly 400,000 people seeking to adjust their immigration status per year, but the agency did not have an estimate of the total number of immigrants who would potentially be denied residency and other benefits. Advocates for immigrant rights said Monday that hundreds of thousands of immigrants are likely to forgo or withdraw from a federal assistance program they are legally entitled to receive amid fears that their families could be separated because some members would be deemed ineligible to enter or remain in the country.