Greetings—

During the last two federal administrations, immigrants have experienced rapid shifts in policies affecting their access to public safety net programs. Looming especially large were changes to the public charge rule, which expanded consideration of noncash public benefits receipt in applications for green cards or temporary visas.

A new brief from Urban Institute experts finds that, during this period of policy change and debate, many immigrant families continued to avoid safety net programs for fear of potential immigration consequences.

Specifically, nearly one in four adults in mixed-status families, where one or more member is undocumented and all others have a lawful immigration status, and over 1 in 7 adults in immigrant families with children avoided safety net programs because of green card concerns in 2023. They also find that:

Nearly 6 in 10 adults in mixed-status families reported experiencing one or more forms of material hardship in 2023.
Adults in mixed-status families were about twice as likely (52.1 percent) to report food insecurity as adults in all-citizen immigrant families (23.2 percent) and adults in families where all members were either green card holders or citizens (24.1 percent). 
45.7 percent of adults in immigrant families with children reported one or more forms of material hardship in 2023, a rate higher than immigrant families without children (36.0 percent).

“Immigrant families who lack access to safety net programs have fewer resources to draw on to meet their basic needs, which has adverse consequences for the health and well-being of all family members, including the children in the family,” the researchers write.

Please email me if you have questions or would like to speak with the research team.