August 13, 2019

Dear John xxxxxx,

The public-charge rule issued Monday by the Trump administration will have profound effects on future family-based legal immigration to the United States. It also will affect the use of public benefits by millions of legal noncitizens and the U.S. citizens with whom they live.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates the complex new standards could cause a significant share of the nearly 23 million noncitizens and U.S. citizens in benefit-using immigrant families to disenroll from programs such as Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

The rule formally affects only applicants for admission to the United States or those already in the country seeking to adjust their status. However, as a new MPI commentary explains, the confusion and uncertainty created by the rule in the current immigration climate will likely lead to much larger effects, causing many to disenroll from public benefit programs or forgo their use ahead. Forty-seven percent of noncitizens live in a family using a cash or noncash benefit under the new rule—up from 3 percent using a cash benefit counted under the earlier policy, which dated to 1999.

The population that MPI estimates could feel the rule’s “chilling effects” and disenroll includes 10 million noncitizens, as well as the 12 million U.S. citizens, nearly two-thirds of them children, living with them. The effects will be felt particularly hard on the two largest racial/ethnic immigrant groups: Latinos and Asian American/Pacific Islanders (AAPI).

You can read the commentary and related MPI research here: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/chilling-effects-us-public-charge-rule-commentary.

Best regards,

Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Migration Policy Institute