MIAMI (AP):The Trump administration is reviving a rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.The policy, known as “public charge”, appeared on Thursday in the Federal Register. It will be formally published on July 20 and take effect September 18. Under the policy, applicants for green cards have to show they wouldn’t be burdens to the country or “public charges”.The policy was first implemented in February 2020 as one of President Donald Trump’s moves to limit legal immigration during his first administration, but it was reversed after Democratic President Joe Biden came to power.Its return comes when the Republican administration is implementing a hard-line policy to curb both illegal and legal immigration, and when the cost of healthcare and food is rising.The federal government “is reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources and ending policies that encouraged dependency on the backs of hard-working American taxpayers”, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in a post published on its X account.“Under President Trump, USCIS is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves,” the post said.While the administration’s crackdown on immigration has an increased focus on deportations and immigration enforcement in cities across the country and at borders and entry points, it has also taken actions that target legal immigrants and mixed-status families, in which the parents are foreign nationals with US-born children.The rule expands disqualification optionsFederal law already requires those seeking permanent residency or legal status to demonstrate that they will not become a public charge. The Trump administration’s rule, however, broadens the grounds for disqualification.The new rule does not describe or specify by name the benefits and programmes that could be considered a public charge. Instead, it says that officers who would implement the policy will make “individualized, fact-specific public charge inadmissible determinations, based on a totality of the alien’s circumstances”.It says that, “using good judgment and discretion, officers will more accurately assess an alien’s likelihood at any time of becoming a public charge”.The Trump administration first promoted the rule in 2018 as a way to ensure that only those who were self-sufficient came to the US. Immigrant rights advocates criticised it, saying it amounted to a “wealth test”. Public health experts said it would lead to worse health outcomes.Manatt Health, a group that provides advice to state and federal governments, estimated the policy would have deterred as many as 26 million people from seeking healthcare, food, housing or other aid through programmes for which they qualified under federal law. About half were US citizens, mostly children or adults living in a mixed-status family, according to the group.Experts also noted that most people who receive benefits from the government are already legal residents.

A 2020 study from the Migration Policy Institute said that while the “chilling effects” may be vast, the number of immigrants who could be deemed ineligible for legal permanent residence based on use of one of the public benefits under the rule was small.

The institute estimated that no more than 167,000 people — less than 1% of the 22.1 million non-citizens residing in the United States at that time — could be determined ineligible for a green card based on their current use of a listed benefit.