DHS to deny permanent residency to those who use most public benefits

The Trump administration has implemented a new rule allowing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deny permanent residency to individuals who benefit from non-cash public programs, including Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Undocumented immigrants who use these benefits, which they are legally allowed to use, will be considered a “public charge,” possibly making them ineligible for permanent residency. In the past, the public charge title has been used very narrowly defined. DHS agents will now have sweeping discretion to deny immigrants who otherwise qualify for residency.

“This would punish immigrants for participation that is both lawful and Congressionally-authorized,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “The weaponization of healthcare, nutrition assistance and other critical stopgap services is a cruel and unlawful attack on our immigrant families — who contribute so much to our economy and our communities — and California will fight back.”

The new rule will apply to those who submit applications for green cards, visas and United States admission on or after Sept. 18.

The administration first floated the rule in December 2025, canceling a Biden-era rule that prohibited officials handling immigration cases from considering use of public benefits when determining legal status eligibility. 

For decades, the term “public-charge" referred only to a person who is primarily and permanently dependent on public cash assistance or long-term care funded by the federal government.

The first Trump administration widely expanded the public charge definition in 2019 to include Medicaid, SNAP and Section 8 housing assistance. President Joe Biden’s administration reversed the rule.

California co-led a coalition of 20 attorneys general last year in opposing the new DHS rule, which gives immigration officials complete discretion to deny residency to those who have used any non-cash public benefits, even if only for a short period of time.

“Eligible immigrant households will avoid food, housing and health care assistance because of fear that accessing such programs will contribute to a ‘public charge’ finding,” the coalition warned in a December letter to DHS.

Even while not having legal status, undocumented immigrants still pay into the system each year.

In 2022, this population paid $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes. Furthermore, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that for every one million undocumented immigrants in the country, public services – like the ones targeted in the public charge rule – receive an additional $8.9 billion in tax revenue.

DHS estimated at the time there would be an average 17.3% disenrollment rate in critical public programs as a direct result of the rule.

Nationally, there are around 13.5 million enrollees in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program that live in a household with at least one undocumented individual. This new rule could result in the disenrollment of anywhere between 1.4 to 4.1 million people in these programs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“Children will bear the consequences of these decisions,” Shimica Gaskins, president and CEO of End Child Poverty said in a statement. “No parent deserves to be scared out of enrolling their children in nutrition assistance, healthcare, housing assistance and access to other essential supports.”