Canal Alliance urges federal action to protect immigrant families

Canal Alliance joined nonprofits from every state and the District of Columbia urging the Biden Administration to act quickly to finalize responsible “public charge” regulations that protect families.  

A comment was submitted on April 25^th to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and recommended the finalization of a “public charge” regulation that secures immigrant families’ access to the health and social services safety net. The comment was coordinated by the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition (PIF) and signed by 1,071 organizations. 

“The pandemic made it clear that when we deny families healthcare and social services based on where they were born, our community is less resilient and more vulnerable to public health threats like COVID-19,” said Aaron Burnett, Advocacy and Policy Director at Canal Alliance. “We saw the impact on people in the Canal neighborhood and worked diligently with our partners to help overcome these barriers.” 

The comment was submitted in response to a February regulatory proposal that would largely restore and improve upon the public charge policy in place for 20 years prior to the Trump Administration. The previous administration’s public charge policy, which took effect just weeks before COVID-19 hit the United States, deterred millions of immigrant families from seeking health care and aid during the pandemic, undermining pandemic response and widening racial disparities in its economic and health impact. The PIF comment: 

• Commends DHS for proposing a responsible definition of “public charge” that explicitly excludes Medicaid, SNAP and other federal benefits from being included in a public charge determination; and for publishing an enumerated list of categories of immigrants exempt from public charge determinations 
• Urges DHS to make specific improvements: 

• Clarifying that state, Tribal, and local cash assistance programs cannot be counted in public charge evaluations 
• Excluding long-term nursing home care under Medicaid 

Several states, including California, launched cash assistance programs during the pandemic, with the specific intent of providing economic aid to families excluded from federally-funded programs. Including such programs in public charge determinations, would frustrate states’ policy objectives and weaken pandemic response and recovery efforts. 

Research has shown that the chilling effect of the public charge policy extended well beyond the programs covered by that policy. For example, immigrant parents were deterred from covering their uninsured U.S. citizen children under the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is similar to, but different from Medicaid, a much larger health program named in the Trump policy.

As stated in the comment, “allowing any type of Medicaid coverage to be considered in a public charge determination causes confusion and perpetuates the chilling effect.” The comment also indicates that, because people with disabilities are more likely than others to require nursing home care, considering Medicaid-financed nursing home care in public charge determinations would bias the policy against persons with disabilities. 

“With a few common-sense improvements, the Biden Administration can finalize public charge regulations that protect immigrant families and the nation from reckless, racist abuses like those we saw under Trump,” said Adriana Cadena, PIF coalition director. “We urge DHS to act quickly to finalize a responsible public charge policy.”