Why You Should Care About the Public Charge Rule and Its Racist Goals

When the Department of Homeland Security released its proposed change to the public charge regulations last month, it was one more piece of the administration’s broader agenda: racism. This vision is at the core of a presidential ideology that believes immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country. It was on full display last month following the arrest of an Afghan immigrant in the DC shooting of two national guard members.

Despite the fact that over 60 percent of mass shooters are white, the administration used the situation as an opportunity to paint all non-white immigrants as subhuman, announcing an immediate halt to all immigration from what it called “Third World” countries. That wasn’t a dog whistle; it was a bullhorn. And in case you didn’t hear it, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem clarified what they meant: “Every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

This reaction was just one week after the proposed change to the public charge rule on November 19. Earlier in the month, the administration announced that they would be slashing the refugee limit from 125,000 to 7,500, while prioritizing white South Africans and white people in general. So, when Trump spewed a Thanksgiving Day tirade of threats toward immigrants who are “a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization,” it was not just dangerous rhetoric. It was policy.

This is why public charge is more than just some technical, regulatory issue: it’s a tool for furthering the administration’s racist agenda. Public charge is an immigration concept first passed into law in 1882, the same year Chinese people were explicitly barred from immigrating to the United States. It was meant to target Irish immigrants who were not part of the white establishment at the time. Although Congress never explicitly defined the term, it has been consistently interpreted to exclude people either from entering the country or gaining permanent residence (also known as a green card) if they would be reliant on the government for survival.

The administration is now elevating a vast expansion of public charge as a core component of its agenda, made clear by their fixation on something already resoundingly rejected by the courts. Their current plan would wipe out the existing rule from 2022 and replace it with…nothing but chaos. This is even more troublesome than their first attempt in 2019, which Migration Policy Institute noted would negatively affect areas like Central America, but not regions with majority-white populations, like Europe.

Under the traditional interpretation and current regulations, the public charge rule only considers an individual’s future use of cash benefits (like with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and long-term care, like in a nursing home under Medicaid. The administration’s current plan is to make all use of benefits (possibly even by family members) fair game and allow unlimited discretion from individual officers reviewing immigration applications. Unsurprisingly, research demonstrates that discretionary decision-making like this invites implicit bias, leading to inequitable treatment of people of color.

That inequitable result, however, is the point. In invoking public charge, the administration is vilifying not just immigrants, but also dipping into racist tropes, linking any use of government services with an offensive and inaccurate term like “entitlement junkies.” Unsurprisingly, this stigmatizing is selectively applied. According to research by law professor Cori Alonso-Yoder, who draws connections between public charge and welfare reform, attention to the use of benefits only increased as the immigrant population became less white.

Public charge mirrors the history of welfare reform. Both have been used to stir up resentment over benefits for political gain. In the 1970 to 1980s, this meant President Reagan inventing the term “welfare queens” — with Black women as scapegoats — to make it seem like those who used welfare were gaming the system and using taxpayer dollars to fund lavish lifestyles. It was a core tenet of his Southern Strategy, articulated by his political adviser Lee Atwater. They recognized that, because overtly racist language was no longer politically viable, they could still exploit racist resentment with subtlety: promising policies that would harm Black people more than white people. Welfare reform in 1996 delivered on that. That’s what is driving much of the Trump agenda, this time with immigrants as the target.

This use of policy to achieve a racist vision will not end with public charge. This is, after all, an administration that opened an Office of Remigration, a term referring to ethnic cleansing and the deportation of all non-white people. Standing up for racial justice and human decency demands not just attention, but action. History has shown us that showing up matters, and it is how we can stop this racist slide into fascism.

Right now, until December 19, you can write to DHS and tell them you object to their approach to public charge, and they will have to listen. This is one step of many in making all of our voices heard, and it’s on all of us to call out and reject this agenda.