A new Trump administration “public charge” rule takes effect in the United States on September 18, fundamentally changing the criteria immigration authorities can use to determine whether an immigrant lawfully living in the country may obtain permanent resident status, commonly known as a green card. There is considerable confusion surrounding the rule, in part because it does not simply mean that receiving certain government benefits will automatically disqualify an applicant from obtaining a green card. The system is more complicated and, in some respects, less predictable than that. The rule taking effect in September eliminates limits established by the Biden administration in 2022 and gives immigration officers substantially greater discretion to decide whether an applicant is likely to become a “public charge” in the future. The underlying logic is that if someone has already relied on various forms of public assistance before obtaining permanent residency, that history may be considered evidence that the person could become dependent on government support and therefore should not receive a green card.
The concept of a “public charge” was not invented by Donald Trump. The principle has existed in U.S. immigration law since the late 19th century, allowing the government to deny admission or permanent residency to someone considered likely to depend on the government for support. For many years, however, the term was interpreted relatively narrowly. Authorities focused primarily on whether someone was likely to rely on government cash assistance for income maintenance or require long-term institutional care financed by the government. The Biden administration’s 2022 rule codified that narrower interpretation. Receiving certain Medicaid services, food assistance or housing assistance did not, by itself, constitute grounds for declaring someone a public charge. American Community Media recently held a press briefing with experts to examine the implications of the new rule.
The new rule, published on July 20, dismantles that framework. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the 2022 rule restricted immigration authorities too severely and prevented officers from accurately determining who might become a public charge in the future. The administration maintains that the immigration system should encourage self-sufficiency and that government benefits should not serve as an incentive for immigration. Under the new system, officers will once again evaluate the totality of an applicant’s circumstances. That assessment may include age, health, family status, income, assets, debts, education, job skills and whether the applicant has received means-tested government benefits. The revised green card application, Form I-485, contains questions addressing these circumstances.
This does not mean that every immigrant who receives Medicaid or SNAP food assistance will automatically be denied a green card after September 18. It means that the previous clear boundaries defining which benefits could not be considered are being removed. According to an analysis by the health policy research organization KFF, immigration authorities may now consider programs that had previously been excluded, including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP, as well as potentially other forms of assistance. In certain circumstances, the use of benefits by family members may also become relevant as officers weigh the totality of an applicant’s circumstances. The resulting uncertainty is therefore one of the most significant consequences of the new system. Until now, applicants could know more clearly what could and could not be held against them. Under the new rule, those boundaries are less distinct. Immigration officers will have greater discretion, making it more difficult for applicants to know in advance who will receive a green card and who will not.
The rule does not apply to everyone. It primarily affects people seeking green cards in immigration categories subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility. Those may include spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens, certain relatives of permanent residents and applicants in a number of employment-based categories. Refugees, people granted asylum, certain victims of human trafficking, U visa holders who are victims of crimes, some survivors of domestic violence and other groups exempted by law are not subject to the same determination. The public charge test also does not apply to naturalization. The new rule applies to affected applications for admission made on or after September 18 and applications for adjustment of status postmarked or electronically submitted on or after that date.
The social impact of the rule, however, may extend far beyond the population directly subject to it. The reason is a phenomenon researchers call the “chilling effect.” An immigrant family is unlikely to study more than a hundred pages of federal regulations before taking a child to the doctor or applying for food assistance. If family members fear that contact with government programs could jeopardize someone’s immigration status, they may conclude that the safest course is simply to ask for nothing. In doing so, however, families can put their own health and security, and potentially that of others, at risk. DHS itself acknowledged extensive public comments warning that uncertainty surrounding the rule could discourage even legally eligible people from obtaining health care, nutrition and housing assistance.
The United States has seen this happen before. A nationwide Urban Institute study conducted in 2019 found that 20.4 percent of adults in immigrant families with children reported that they or a family member had avoided programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, CHIP or housing assistance because of concerns about the consequences for obtaining a green card. Among low-income immigrant families, the share was 31.5 percent. Particularly striking was the fact that fear spread to programs that were not covered by the rule. Even among people who believed they understood the policy, confusion was widespread. Nearly four in five did not know that a child’s Medicaid coverage was not counted in the parent’s public charge determination.
Xiao Wang, co-founder and CEO of Boundless Immigration, which assists immigrants with the immigration process, told the American Community Media briefing that “the fear is greater than the rule itself.” According to Wang, during the first Trump administration, families began pulling their children out of nutrition and health programs even before the new public charge policy had taken effect. He also warned that the new system could make the immigration process significantly more complicated. Because officers will once again assess an applicant’s overall circumstances, applicants may have to provide far more documentation to demonstrate that they can support themselves. Wang said some case files could grow to hundreds of pages, increasing not only the burden on applicants but also the time required to adjudicate their cases.
Yet those who ultimately receive a negative immigration decision may not necessarily be the people most vulnerable to the consequences. One of the groups most exposed to the effects of the policy consists of U.S. citizen children living in mixed-status immigrant families. Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families and a research professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy, says one in four children in the United States lives in a household where family members have different immigration statuses, while the overwhelming majority of those children are themselves U.S. citizens. Georgetown data show that enrollment of children in Medicaid and CHIP has fallen by more than two million since January 2025. Alker emphasizes that the decline has multiple causes and cannot be attributed entirely to the public charge rule, but she considers the chilling effect one contributing factor.
The dilemma facing these families can be brutally simple. A U.S. citizen child may be eligible for health insurance while one of the child’s parents is waiting for a green card. The parent may fear that enrolling the child in a government program could jeopardize the parent’s own immigration case. The legal reality may be considerably more nuanced, but the family’s decision is shaped not by a detailed reading of immigration regulations but by fear of the risk. According to Alker, that fear carries a direct health cost. Without insurance, families have greater difficulty obtaining primary care, pediatric care and preventive services. Untreated asthma, a broken bone or a wound requiring stitches may eventually lead to an emergency room visit, which is far more expensive for both the family and the health care system. The long-term effects of regular pediatric care can extend from a child’s performance in school to earning potential later in life.
A similar pattern is emerging in food assistance. Dr. Giridhar Mallya, a public health physician and senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said that during the public charge policy of the first Trump administration, more than 700,000 children in mixed-status families lost SNAP benefits over a two-year period, while he estimated the overall decline at nearly two million people. The current rule has not yet taken effect, but participation in SNAP is already falling sharply. According to data cited from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, enrollment in the program dropped by more than 4.5 million people, or 11 percent, between July 2025 and April 2026. That decline cannot be attributed solely to the public charge rule. Stricter eligibility requirements contained in the 2025 budget law and other changes have also played a significant role.
Mallya noted that SNAP provides a food safety net for roughly 37 million people and that about four in ten participants are children. The consequences of childhood hunger go far beyond having less food on the table. A developing brain requires a steady supply of adequate nutrition, which means insufficient food can have lasting effects on learning ability and cognitive development. Another important fact is often lost in the debate. Immigrants who are in the country illegally are generally ineligible for these federal Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Much of the controversy therefore concerns immigrants who are lawfully present and U.S. citizen children who are legally entitled to participate in these programs.
The public charge rule therefore links two very different decisions in the minds of immigrant families. One is whether to seek help today with medical care, housing or food. The other is whether doing so could jeopardize their ability to remain in the United States years from now. The central problem with the system taking effect September 18 is that the answer cannot always be found on a simple list. Immigration authorities will be able to evaluate the totality of an applicant’s individual circumstances, while families must make decisions about public assistance before they can know how much weight a future immigration officer might assign to those decisions.
That is why one of the experts’ most important practical messages is that families should not automatically give up benefits for which they are legally eligible. The public charge rule does not apply to every immigrant, not every form of assistance carries the same implications, and the legal consequences of benefits received by one family member are not necessarily what another family member fears they might be. Anyone preparing to apply for a green card while receiving public benefits should therefore seek advice from a qualified professional familiar with the individual immigration case before giving up health coverage or food assistance. Previous experience suggests that some of the most serious consequences of the public charge rule may ultimately appear not in an immigration office, but in the pediatrician’s office where a child is no longer brought in for care, and in the family kitchen where there is less food on the table.
