You may recall that in 2019, the Trump administration put a rule into effect that made it more difficult to obtain a green card through a family petition. That rule was commonly known as the public charge rule. Even before Trump’s new rule took effect, green card applicants had always been required to show that they would not rely primarily on government assistance to get by in the US. But Trump put new rules in place that made it far more difficult for many applicants to qualify. Under Trump, the government had to take a hard look at an applicant’s income level. Generally, the government wanted to see that the applicant was making at least 125% of poverty level income. If the applicant had received many different types of public assistance, that counted against them. Health issues were a negative factor. The inability to speak English was a negative factor. The government looked at many different factors to decide whether an applicant was “likely” to need government assistance in the future. In short, Trump made it significantly more difficult than it had been in the past to obtain a green card through a family petition.
But change is on the horizon. The Biden administration has announced that it is taking a hard look at the public charge rules and that it expects to put a new set of rules in place soon. In even more good news, there were many lawsuits across the country, including one pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, that challenged Trump’s more difficult public charge rule – arguing it was unconstitutional. Until today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was fighting those lawsuits, arguing that Trump’s more difficult public charge rules were constitutional and proper. But now, DHS has announced that it will stop defending the public charge rules. In other words, DHS is conceding. It is no longer defending the Trump-era rules.
Two federal district courts had previously held that the Trump-era public charge rules were improper and could not be enforced. As of today, DHS is no longer working to undo those decisions.
What does all this mean for you? Applicants who intend to submit right away may want to wait a few more days for DHS to make even clearer whether the Form I-944 (required by the Trump-era rule) is necessary anymore. At this point, it seems very likely that the form will no longer be necessary.
It is difficult to overstate what good news this is for the immigrant population and potential green card applicants. As the Secretary of DHS stated: “The 2019 public charge rule was not in keeping with our nation’s values. It penalized those who access health benefits and other government services available to them.” Here at Immigrant Roots Law Office, we couldn’t agree more. The Trump-era rules were deterring many people from receiving the important benefits they needed. It was keeping many excellent applicants from obtaining legal status here in the US simply because they made a small income. Although we await final guidance from Biden on what the new rules will look like, it is safe to say they will be a major improvement over the Trump-era rules.
We will keep you posted on new developments as they occur.