Trump continues evaluating measures against immigrants
Current legislation in the United States against immigrants provides that immigration officials analyze a small range of public benefits in order to decide if a resident applicant can become a burden to the public treasury, but orders them not to pay attention to assistance. monetary policy, such as food programs and subsidies for pre-school education. Experts and officials consulted by Reuters were concerned because the changes proposed by the president right now, may discourage immigrants to use social assistance programs to which they are entitled to stay healthy and fit to work in the fear of affecting their desired permanent residence.
The Donald Trump government continues to push for an agenda designed to oppress legal immigration without the need to appeal to the United States Congress. One of the proposed measures seeks to hinder the path to the permanent residence of hundreds of thousands of foreigners legally residing in the country.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has drawn up a proposal to prevent legal immigrants from obtaining permanent residence or green cards if they or their children - even if they were born on US soil - make use of federal or state public aid with funds from the taxpayers.
According to an exclusive of the agency Reuters, the draft of the regulation puts in the window to the immigrants who receive coupons for foods (food stamps), and they are enrolled in a public medical insurance like Medicaid and also, they inscribe their children in programs of schooling of the State or receive subsidies in public service tariffs. According to the well-known agency, if this series of regulations had been in force in 2016, some 383,000 immigrants who receive social assistance from the government and obtained permanent residence would have been affected.
The DHS considers that the reception of public benefits by a foreigner is at the expense of a taxpayer and the availability of public benefits would involve an incentive for foreigners to migrate to the United States, as proposed by the proposal to fortify access to the residence. As stated by the document, being a recipient of these social assistance programs could be detrimental to the applicant for permanent residence.
A spokesman for the Immigration Services declined to comment to Reuters as the project is under consideration. The new regulations would not affect permanent residents interested in obtaining citizenship. This radical modification of the current guidelines, beyond explicitly prohibiting immigration officials from evaluating the benefits, adds to other initiatives of the same aspect as the elimination of the lottery of visas and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Salvadorans and Haitians.
In addition, the administration wants to reduce family reunifications and limit the issuance of visas for specialized professionals with university degrees.