Judge Blocks Trump Policy That Favors Wealthy Immigrants

Under the policy, which is still subject to full legal review by the courts, agency officials are to consider a “totality of circumstances” in assessing green card applicants based on a list of “positive” and “negative” factors. Negative factors include being unemployed, not completing high school and lacking proficiency in English. Assets, personal debts and credit score are also taken into account.

Heavily weighted positive factors include having a household income that is 250 percent above the federal poverty line, currently $53,325 for a family of three, or having private health insurance that is not subsidized by Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Most people seeking to obtain legal permanent residency or to immigrate to the United States are immediate relatives of naturalized Americans or have a family-based sponsor. Thus, critics have said, the new criteria force immigrants to choose between the well-being of some family members in the United States and their desire to reunite with those waiting to join them from overseas. A family’s use of benefits could hamper the chances that a spouse in a foreign country would ever be allowed to immigrate to the United States, even if the family members who use the benefits are United States citizens.

Diminished participation in Medicaid and other programs would undermine the financial stability of immigrant families and the healthy development of their children, according to several recent studies. Nationwide, 13.5 million users of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, including 7.6 million children, live in a household that includes at least one noncitizen, making it possible they would decrease their use of government health benefits as a result of the rule, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The new criteria would also result in more deportations because those denied legal permanent residency would be placed in removal proceedings.

The new rule regards a public charge as a person who receives listed public benefits for more than an aggregate of 12 months over any 36-month period. Each benefit used counts toward the 12-month calculation; if an applicant receives two different benefits in one month, they would count as two months of benefits.

The complexity of the regulation and fear of being denied a green card have sown confusion in immigrant communities. Annick Koloko, an immigration lawyer, said she had encountered immigrants who have forgone benefits in anticipation of the rule, even when they had children who were citizens and in need of help.