New Trump administration rules on public assistance could deny green cards to immigrants trying to gain citizenship

[SaysWho?]

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-08-12/immigrants-green-cards-medicaid-food-stamps

 

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Trump administration rules that could deny green cards to immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance are going into effect, potentially making it more difficult for some to get legal status in the United States.

Federal law already requires those seeking green cards and legal status to prove they will not be a burden to the U.S., or what’s called a “public charge,” but the new rules, made public Monday, detail a broader range of programs that could disqualify them.

 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers will now weigh public assistance along with other factors such as education, household income and health to determine whether to grant legal status.

 

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But advocates worry the rules will scare immigrants into not asking for help. And they are concerned the rules give too broad an authority to decide whether someone is likely to need public assistance at any time, giving immigration officials the ability to deny legal status to more people.

 

On average, 544,000 people apply annually for green cards, with about 382,000 falling into categories that would be subject to this review, according to the government.

 

Guidelines in use since 1999 referred to a public charge as someone primarily dependent on cash assistance, income maintenance or government support for long-term institutionalization.

 

Under the new rules, the Department of Homeland Security has redefined a public charge as someone who is “more likely than not” to receive public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period. If someone has two benefits, that is counted as two months. And the definition has been broadened to include Medicaid, housing assistance and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Zero surprise. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

ItS bEcAuSe ThEyRe IlLeGaL

[Anathema-]

We will enforce the LAW

 

Also, we've decided that the law says you are no longer eligible to live. Sorry, but as I said we have to enforce the law. Tough break.

[SaysWho?]

US Citizen and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli has a different version of the famous Statue of Liberty sonnet.

 

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Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was asked by NPR whether the words of Emma Lazarus' “The New Colossus,” inscribed on a bronze tablet now exhibited in the museum at the statue's base, remain "part of the American ethos."

"They certainly are," Cuccinelli said. "Give me your tired and your poor — who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge."

 

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Critics of the policy have argued it is at odds with Lazarus' work, which reads in part: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

[Jason]

7 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Critics of the policy have argued it is at odds with Lazarus' work

 

No, it's literally not what the original poem says. bUt CrItIcS sAy @CitizenVectron

[Keyser_Soze]

4 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

No, it's literally not what the original poem says. bUt CrItIcS sAy @CitizenVectron

 

 

[TheGreatGamble]

Ok, while this is crazy, can we stop pretending that the statue of liberty and Lazarus' poem is somehow some kind of US policy. 

 

The whole idea that policy is at odds with a poem is ridiculous. And it's poem that really only became associated with the statue later. 

 

But yeah, otherwise, this policy is all kinds of fucked. 

[SaysWho?]

Cuccinelli says the Statue of Liberty's poem refers back to Europeans.

 

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“Clearly, he did not take part in our curriculum,” said Polland, the executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society, which is leading a three-year initiative called the Emma Lazarus Project.

 

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Lazarus was asked to write the poem in 1883 as part of a fundraiser put on by newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer to raise money for the construction of the base of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus had come from a well-to-do family, as The Washington Post reported in a 2017 story about her life, but she turned to immigrant advocacy after witnessing the mistreatment of thousands of newly arrived Eastern European Jews in the early 1880s. She discovered them living in squalor in overcrowded living facilities that were overflowing with garbage, with little access to clean water, education or job training.

Her experience formed the backdrop of the famous stanzas Lazarus composed: “Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/ Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

 

[finaljedi]

20 hours ago, TheGreatGamble said:

Ok, while this is crazy, can we stop pretending that the statue of liberty and Lazarus' poem is somehow some kind of US policy. 

 

The whole idea that policy is at odds with a poem is ridiculous. And it's poem that really only became associated with the statue later. 

 

But yeah, otherwise, this policy is all kinds of fucked. 

 

The poem was written to raise money for the pedestal and 20 years later it was attached to it on the inside.  It’s not policy but it was put up to sort of go with the spirit of being a country of immigrants and the fact that the statue is one of the first things they’d see on the trip across the Atlantic.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Fuck U Cooch. 

[TheGreatGamble]

56 minutes ago, finaljedi said:

 

The poem was written to raise money for the pedestal and 20 years later it was attached to it on the inside.  It’s not policy but it was put up to sort of go with the spirit of being a country of immigrants and the fact that the statue is one of the first things they’d see on the trip across the Atlantic.

I know tyhat. But ive heard so many people talking about these policies and mentioning Lady Liberty, and I find it to be ridiculous. A statue, no matter how big, is not an argument for public policy. 

[osxmatt]

Ah the perfect confluence of GOP hatred for immigrants and a social safety net.

[TheBladeRoden]

Next up: "The 'shining city city upon a hill' phrase is not US policy. We are, in fact, not trying to look good to other countries."