Trump's New Green Card Regs Called Cruel. They're Not

Last week the Trump administration announced new tighter eligibility requirements for foreign nationals to get a Permanent Legal Residency (PLR) permit, the highly coveted so-called "green card". It is the only permit that gives legal vetted immigrants a permanent right-to-stay and to work in the U.S. and eventually to apply for citizenship.

The new regulations would make an applicant ineligible for a green card if they were found likely to use certain long-term government funded benefits such as food stamps, Section 8 housing vouchers and for some, Medicare prescription drug programs.  Under the new regulations this would be considered being a "public charge".  In days gone by it was called "being on the dole".   The administration say the new rules are aimed at keeping out people deemed to be a drain on the country's resources by using programs funded at public expense for low-income Americans. 

The new rules could deny green cards to some 400,000 new applicants. They will not apply to millions of immigrants who already have green cards but have not become citizens.  Naturalized citizens of course are no longer immigrants.

"Self-sufficiency has been a basic principle of United States immigration law since this country's earliest immigration statutes," the introduction of the new regulations' proposal reads.  "It remains United States policy that "the availability of public benefits not constitutes an incentive for immigration to the United States". 

In other words, permanent immigrants and potential citizens are not supposed to become public charges.   The government has traditionally considered someone who relies on government cash assistance for more than half of his or her income a public charge. The new rules just broaden what is means to constitute a public charge.

But immigrant advocates see the new regs differently.  Some call them "heartless" "cynical" "a new level of cruelty" and the "beginning of a caste system" in the U.S. And of course "politically motivated".   

"The new rules are intended to stir anti-immigrant hostility before the November election," spokespeople for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network claim,.  "It will force families to decide between permanent immigration status or ensuring their families have enough to eat."  

"The proposal is clearly intended to deny basic supports like food, health care and housing to lawfully present immigrants and their families, including millions of children and U.S. citizens who pay taxes, work, go to school and contribute to our country's economy," Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state.

But the President of the United States has the constitutional right to change the rules and regulations governing the execution of immigration laws. In 1986 President Reagan issued an amnesty order to forgive the illegal status of some 1-3 million immigrants as his way of dealing with the unauthorized immigration problem.  In 2012, President Obama granted a deferment of deportation – but not legal status – to some 900,000 illegal immigrants who came into the country before the age of 16 and applied successfully for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  In 2017, DACA was rescinded by President Trump and awaits probable adjudication by the Supreme Court in 2019.  

Obviously over time, immigration rules and regulations change as do the numbers of people to be covered. When the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was passed by the Great Society Congress – the most liberal in history – it established a cap of 250,000 permanent legal residents a year.  Now it's over 1.2 million.

Over the decades, dozens of temporary non-immigration permits were added to the rising number of permanent legal visas.  There are now some one million foreign students alone on F and J visas, and hundreds of thousands each of skilled workers (H1B), agricultural workers (H1a), religious, business, investors and dozens of other categories of temporary workers.  Presidents continually have changed the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. from between 800,000 to 300,000 in just the past ten years.  In addition, hundreds of thousands of tourists, visitors and travelers are allowed into the U.S. every year with very short legal temporary permits – up to six months max.

None of these temporary visas are enforced very well. Indeed, some 50% of the illegal immigrant community of over 11 million are believed to have come into the country legally through our airports, harbors and land ports of entry on temporary permits.  Once they overstay, they are now illegally here and become illegal immigrants (many applied to and were accepted on DACA).

It's complicated but one thing is clear. Congress makes and changes our immigration admissions laws regarding both legal and illegal immigration.  The President executives the laws, including how much to enforce the number of legal and illegal immigrants allowed to stay and the regulations constituting "public charge".  If critiques deem either the laws or the execution of them to be cruel and unconstitutional, then they might have them taken up by the Supreme Court.

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