Underserved families in Marin County are abandoning basic social services due to fears of an impending change in the nation’s immigration policy.
A proposal announced last week by the Department of Homeland Security would expand restrictions for immigrants trying to change their legal status if they receive public benefits or are deemed likely to become a “public charge” in the future.
The public charge component of immigration law was designed to determine whether immigrants would become dependent on government assistance as their main source of support. If the government decides that is a risk, it can deny a person admission to the U.S. or refuse a green card application.
Previously, the public charge test took only into account cash assistance and long-term, government-provided medical care. The proposed change would expand the list of public benefits counted in the public charge test to include Medicaid, some Medicare subsidies, Section 8 housing and food stamps.
“That is a huge change, and we’re gravely concerned that it’s going to ultimately have a negative impact on people’s health and safety and wellbeing,” said Keri Beuerman, the social services director for Marin Health and Human Services. “We’ve already seen clients who are confused and scared and asking their [social] worker if they should withdraw from health care benefits, from food assistance. We don’t want to discourage people from accessing benefits, but don’t want to give false reassurances everything is going to be okay because we don’t know how this could potentially impact people.”
The proposal’s public comment period ends in early December, but service providers throughout Marin have noticed an impact since a draft of the regulation became public last spring. Clients have abandoned programs for health care, housing and nutrition assistance and are refusing to register for new ones out of fear that it will detrimentally impact their immigration status.
Advocates of the rule have said it would help prevent non-citizens from draining the country’s resources, but Ms. Beuerman calls this a major misconception. Over 80 percent of people who access public benefits are U.S.-born, she said, and the immigrants affected by the proposed ruling “are people working hard to support themselves and their family. Because of the high cost of living, they’re not able to make it on employment alone, so they’re coming to the county for assistance that they’re entitled to.”
Amy Reisch, the executive director of First 5 Marin, agreed. “Ninety-eight percent of the people who would be impacted by these rule changes are people who are working and doing everything they’re supposed to do and are legally here,” she said. “This does not impact undocumented immigrants.” Current green-card holders and asylees would also remain unimpacted by the change.
Ms. Beuerman said it is likely the proposed rule will become law, but that the county has already started working around it. Last spring, after the proposal was leaked, the county convened a working group to ensure policymakers and providers were informed and in conversation with each other.
“Part of what we’ve been talking about is alternative resources for people,” Ms. Beuerman said. If, for example, a client chose to stop receiving food stamps because she was worried it would affect her immigration case, “can they access food through the food bank, or a faith-based institution: places that can give resources without collecting client data, so people will feel more safe.”
In the meantime, opponents of the change are making the most of the proposal’s comment period, which ends Dec. 10. “The Department is required to review every single comment, so the more comments we can put in, the more time we have, the more help we have in trying to minimize the impact,” Ms. Reisch said. “The reality is that some new rule will be passed, but maybe we can influence it to be less harmful than the current proposed rule.”