L.A. Care strongly supports President Biden’s decision to rescind a Trump Administration rule that threatened harm to the health and wellbeing of millions of legal immigrants in this country. The Trump rule was intended to deny permanent residency – a green card – to legal immigrants for simply accessing essential services like Medicaid, SNAP food benefits, and housing assistance. With Biden’s action, legal immigrants will no longer be forced to choose between getting health care or other services and losing their ability to stay in the U.S.
L.A. Care was quick to take a stand, submitting a public comment in 2018 when the Trump Administration first proposed the rule change. We knew the change would adversely affect the health of lawful immigrants, and create a chilling effect among those permanent residents who remained eligible for public benefits during the court battles that ensued. L.A. Care estimates that more than 170,000* of our members could have been impacted by the new rule.
The Trump rule, which was finalized in 2019, has been working its way through the courts, leaving its fate uncertain. Last week, the Biden Administration announced it would not defend Trump’s public charge rule in the courts. Not long after that decision, Biden announced he would fully rescind the Trump rule. The Department of Homeland Security will now return to the 1999 version of the Public Charge rule where immigrants seeking permanent status will only have to show that they weren’t receiving cash assistance from the federal government or in long-term institutional care.
L.A. Care’s mission is to provide access to quality health care for Los Angeles County's under-resourced communities and residents, and that includes immigrants who would have been harmed by the Trump rule. L.A. Care will continue to stand against any measure that attempts to deny health and social services those who need them.
-John Baackes
*Estimate based on publicly available data. L.A. Care does not have access to members’ immigration status.