Fw: Proposed Rule Change: Public Charge

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Moyer, Brian F

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Dec 9, 2025, 2:52:45 PM12/9/25

to 'Coville, Robbie' via Pasa Community Board

The Department of Homeland Security released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) last week proposing to change public charge rules. The proposal will cause even more harm, confusion, and fear in our community. Comments are due December 19, 2025.

Please sign -on to the comment from the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition by December 18th, 5pm and submit your own comment in opposition if you can. Read on for more info about public charge, the NPRM, and how to comment. You can see the NPRM here.

What is public charge?

Federal statute permits USCIS to deny some people's visa or green card applications if they find that the person is likely to become a "public charge." We sometimes call this the "public charge test" in the visa/green card application process.

Many people are exempt from the public charge test, it generally is applied to people seeking green cards based on family sponsorship. Refugees, asylees, VAWA petitioners, T and U Visa holders are exempt. People applying for U.S. citizenship, asylum, T and U Visas, SIJ, TPS, and DACA are not subject to a public charge test when applying for those statuses.

In 2022, the Biden administration issued regulations that confirmed long standing practice: only the past receipt of TANF, SSI, and Medical Assistance for long-term nursing home admissions is considered and factoring in receipt by family members of these benefits is prohibited.

A summary of the proposed rule

The proposal eliminates the 2022 regulations, but does not propose new rules. Instead of new rules, it makes broad statements about issuing new guidance at some point in the future. While that new guidance is not written in this proposal, the proposal does makes the following troubling statements:

The forthcoming guidance will permit USCIS workers to consider current or past use of any means-tested public benefits when making public charge decisions.
It neither explicitly states that receipt of benefits by family members will be considered, nor that they will not be considered, but it calls the rule prohibiting consideration of family members' receipt of benefits "not necessary" and "an inappropriate limitation on immigration officers' ability to consider relevant evidence."

There will be no opportunity to comment on this future guidance, so it is important to comment on this proposal now.

The proposal itself states that it will likely cause immigrants and mixed-status families, including U.S. citizens and children, to forgo or disenroll from a broad array of programs and create harm in communities, including but not limited to:

Worse health outcomes.
Malnutrition.
Increased use of emergency rooms.
Higher prevalence of communicable diseases.
Increased rates of uncompensated care.
Increased poverty, housing instability, and reduced educational attainment and productivity.
Lower revenues for healthcare providers.
Decreased sales for grocery retailers.
Economic impacts on agricultural producers.
Financial strain on landlords.
Increased administrative costs and burdens on state and local benefit agencies.

How you can take action

Organizations are permitted to submit or sign multiple comments and are encouraged to both sign on and submit a comment.

Sign-on the comment by December 18th, 5pm EST. Who should sign? Any nonprofit, community-based organization, advocacy group, service provider, faith-based institution, research or policy organization, or allied partner that supports immigrant families and shares our commitment to promoting health, well-being, and economic security. Note: this is an organizational sign-on only.
Write and submit a comment. You can use this template as a guide when drafting your comment. This template was designed by the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition and is meant for direct service organizations. Once you have your comment written and ready, go to https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/USCIS-2025-0304-0001. You can either cut and paste your comment into the blank space (up to 5,000 words) or upload your comment as a file and any attachments as well. Check "email address" and add yours so that you will get confirmation that your comment was submitted.