The public charge is something that has been in effect for decades with immigration but it has been gaining notoriety in the past couple of years under the past presidential administration. It came to light because they implemented a new rule.

In 1999, they proposed a rule and that’s the guidelines that we’ve been following for the past 20 years or more. In 2019-2020, they implemented a new rule and it became very burdensome. People had to essentially fill out new forms that they never had to before. They had to show a lot of proof that they wouldn’t become a burden on the government.

See: Public Charge | USCIS

What the government doesn’t want is for a person who is applying for an immigration benefit to become a public charge on the government, essentially receiving certain types of cash benefits and being unable to support them.

Thankfully, once the new administration came in, they put a pause on that and said they were going to go ahead and reevaluate. Today, they announced their final rule today and what’s going to happen is it’s going to go in effect in 105 days. Their effective date is going to be December 23, 2022.

They’re saying this is our new proposed rule and now it’s going to be finalized. Hopefully, this is the end of us going through the ups and downs of that public charge rule. They’ve essentially taken the 1999 rule and tweaked a few things. But they knew that the rule from 2019 was too heavy and too burdensome on applicants so they decided to take a couple of things from that but they’re really going to base it off of this 1999 rule that’s been working just fine up until this point.

The main types of benefits that are going to be applicable when they’re considering the public charge are going to be essentially cash assistance. One of the things that they are considering is cash assistance under temporary assistance for needy families called the TANF program, state and local cash assistance programs that provide benefits for income maintenance. Usually, they’re called general assistance programs.

They’re also going to consider institutionalization. Those people who might have to be institutionalized for long-term care at the government expense. They’re not talking private expenses, they’re talking government expenses such as government-funded nursing homes or government-funded mental health institutions, things like that.

Essentially what they’re saying is they’re not considering some of those main benefits that people are actually eligible for. A lot of people don’t actually qualify for a lot of these public benefits when they come in as permanent residents.

Also, one of the key things to remember is that these rules are for people who are adjusting their status. These people who are applying for their green card. People who already have green cards, people who are citizens don’t apply to them. It’s mostly for people who are at the stage of applying currently.

They are not going to consider Medicaid or other health insurance or health services. They specifically mentioned they are not going to hold anything against those who might have requested any kind of public benefit during COVID times. People who are getting vaccines, people who are seeking medical treatment.

They’re still encouraging people to get that emergency medical treatment, get what they need to do, keep themselves safe, keep themselves healthy because they are not going to be considering that negatively.

They specifically also mentioned CHIP, Children’s Health Insurance Programs, SNAP which is nutrition programs including food stamps, housing benefits, child care services, emergency assistance, emergency disaster reliefs, foster care and adoption assistance, educational assistance, job training programs, community-based programs, or assistance such as soup kitchens, crisis counseling, intervention, short-term shelters, domestic violence shelters, things like that.

They’re not going to be considering all that which is good because those are usually the things that people need on an emergency-type basis.

Another big thing that they’re saying is that it doesn’t matter if family members within the household have received those benefits. It’s really for the applicant themselves. A lot of the questions that were coming up were, “If my U.S citizen children are receiving these benefits, is it going to affect me?” Thankfully, they are going to make sure to codify that saying, no, it does not count against you if your citizen spouse, children, or parents have received these benefits. It’s not going to count against the applicant themselves so that’s really good as well.

Essentially what they’re doing is they’re taking little pieces from both but they’re mostly using the old rule meaning that they’re gonna make it not as burdensome. They have also said that there will not be any additional forms. They are going to incorporate it into the forms and applications that we already have instead of having separate ones.

This is specifically for USCIS, meaning for those people who are applying within the US and the Department of State and those consular processing cases usually follow suit but they are under a different guidance called the FAM. They usually will follow whatever USCIS is saying. Sometimes, it just takes them a little bit longer to actually codify it as well.

We’re looking forward to them doing that also since we know we have a lot of clients who are doing their interviews outside of the US so we’re hoping that soon they’ll follow suit and have something in writing as well. We are thankful for them codifying this new rule and making it clearer to people and that way people aren’t left wondering.

Requesting a Bond

As usual, if somebody doesn’t qualify as a financial sponsor, they can get joint sponsors and things like that. As a last-case scenario, if for some reason they believe that somebody is going to be a burden on the government, they don’t have a sponsor who earns enough to be their sponsor, the catch-all is that they can actually request a bond.

They may submit a letter to somebody at the end of their case saying, we cannot approve you. We do think that you’re going to be a public charge. You’re going to be a burden on the government but if you pay a certain bond amount, then it’s kind of like a show of good faith that you were able to get this. At the end, you can apply and we can approve you.

It’s essentially a fee in a way. A fine that this person may have to pay but later on they can try and recoup that after a certain amount of time things like that. We don’t see that very often. Most of the time people are fine as long as they’re showing that they have a joint financial sponsor who can also help them in case that the person who is petitioning for them isn’t able to earn enough and they’re not able to show enough of their own resources.