The Washington Post - 13.08.2019

A18 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, AUGUST 13 , 2019

by also including SNAP (or food stamps), federal housing assistance and the use of Medicaid beyond long-term care for adults who are not pregnant. “They are extending the definition of ‘public charge’ to include programs that people often receive to supplement their low earnings,” Parrott said. “It is based on a vision of immigrants not being contributors to the country. It fails to recognize that immigrants today, just like in the past, do important but low-paid jobs, and that they and their children experience upward mobility.” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigra- tion Studies, a Washington think tank that seeks to reduce immigration levels, praised the new rule for restricting the potential immigrant pool to the most highly educated, who will thrive in a “modern, knowledge-based econ- omy.” “There are hundreds of mil- lions of people who want to move to the United States, and this rule ensures that we allow in only those who will be able to pay their own bills,” Krikorian said. The new rule stands to have its most dramatic impact on the numbers and demographics of those permitted to immigrate to the United States through a vast array of new criteria to assess whether an individual is “likely” to someday become a public charge. Factors that can count against a green-card applicant include having “a medical condition” that will interfere with work or school; not having enough money to cov- er “any reasonably foreseeable medical costs” related to such a medical condition; having “financial liabilities;” having been approved to receive a public benefit, even if the individual has not actually received the benefit; having a low credit score; the absence of private health insurance; the absence of a college degree; not having the English-language skills “sufficient to enter the job market;” or having a sponsor who is “unlikely” to provide financial support. abigail.hauslohner@washpost.com nick.miroff@washpost.com maria.sacchetti@washpost.com tracy.jan@washpost.com

members would be deemed ineli- gible to enter or remain in the country. “There is a sense, particularly under this administration, that the rules are always changing and the rules are stacked against immigrants,” said Sharon Parrott, senior vice president for federal policy and program development at the Center on Budget and Pol- icy Priorities. “The message com- ing out of the federal government is, you can be in immigration jeopardy if you receive benefits that Congress says you’re eligible for.” For decades, immigrants have been subject to a more narrow “public charge” test. Officials de- termined whether an immigrant is relying on or likely to rely on government assistance for more than half their cash income by looking at three main sets of benefits — TANF (or traditional cash welfare), Supplemental Security Income and a Medicaid program that pays for long-term care. The Trump administration is broadening the benefits used — or likely to be used in the future — to determine whether someone is likely to become a “public charge”

the family members of U.S. citizens who receive benefits, USCIS officials said, so a parent of a U.S. citizen would not be deemed inel- igible on the basis of the child’s receipt of housing assistance or subsidized food. The policy would not apply to humanitarian programs for refugees and asylum recipients. Other types of public benefits will be excluded from consider- ation, USCIS officials said, including student loans, school-based programs such Head Start, and Medicaid for minors and pregnant women. USCIS officials said the revised standards would apply to nearly 400,000 people seeking to adjust their immigration status per year, but the agency did not have an estimate of the total number of immigrants who would potential- ly be denied residency and other benefits. Advocates for immigrant rights said Monday that hundreds of thousands of immigrants are likely to forgo or withdraw from a federal assistance program they are legally entitled to receive amid fears that their families could be separated because some

ly to become one. If U.S. officials determine an immigrant is likely to become a public charge, that already is grounds for denial of a green card. The State Department has its own screening measures to determine eligibility for those seeking U.S. visas. Critics of the administration blasted the change as a backdoor effort to slash immigration levels. “With one regulation, they are attempting to scratch two itches: One is penalizing immigrants for using public benefits that they are legally entitled to, and the other is cutting legal immigration in half,” said Doug Rand, a former Obama administration official and co- founder of Boundless Immigra- tion. “And the way you cut legal immigration in half is by kicking the doors out from the definition of ‘likely to become a public charge.’ ” USCIS officials said the policy will not be applied retroactively to those who have used benefits in the past; it will apply only to those who receive taxpayer-funded benefits after the rule takes effect in mid-October. The rule also will not apply to

on the condition of anonymity because the official was not au- thorized to speak publicly. But advocates for immigrants say the new rule could narrow the pool of people who are eligible for green cards, which are necessary to get on the path to U.S. citizenship, effectively blocking immigrants who live in poverty from having a chance at naturalization. Naturalization applications spiked during the 2016 presiden- tial campaign, which some called the “Trump effect” because many immigrants were eager to vote. Cuccinelli said the change would benefit U.S. taxpayers by selecting better candidates for U.S. citizenship, ensuring “that our immigration system is bring- ing people to join us as American citizens, as legal permanent residents first, who can stand on their own two feet, who will not be reliant on the welfare system — especially in the age of the modern welfare state, which is so expansive and expensive, frankly.” The rule circumvents earlier, failed efforts by the administration to build support in Congress for a similar “merit-based” over- haul to the immigrant visa system, and it fulfills a longtime goal of senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller and other immigration hawks who have sought new tools to reduce immigration levels. USCIS approved more than 638,000 green-card applicants in 2018, a five-year high. The State Department issued an additional 533,000 immigration visas last year to applicants abroad, mostly to family members of U.S. citizens and legal residents. The policy change has been under development for more than a year and drew a record number of public comments — more than 200,000 — during that phase of the federal rulemaking process. Miller grew impatient and blamed former USCIS director L. Francis Cissna for not moving faster to implement it. The White House replaced Cissna with Cuc- cinelli in June. The 837-page rule, whose length Cuccinelli compared to “War and Peace,” focuses on the obscure definition of what it means to be a “public charge,” or someone dependent on U.S. government benefits, and who is like-

government’s definition of “pub-
lic charge” — and who is deemed
likely to become one.
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting di-
rector of U.S. Citizenship and Im-
migration Services, said at a
White House briefing that his
agency is seeking to bring preci-
sion to an existing tenet of law
that has lacked a clear definition.
“Through the public charge
rule, President Trump’s adminis-
tration is reinforcing the ideals of
self-sufficiency and personal re-
sponsibility, ensuring that immi-
grants are able to support them-
selves and become successful
here in America,” said Cuccinelli,
evoking his family’s Italian ances-
try to characterize previous gen-
erations of immigrants as boot-
strap pullers. “This administra-
tion is promoting our shared his-
tory and encouraging the core
values needed to make the Ameri-
can Dream a reality.”
The move is part of the Trump
administration’s systematic effort
to add new bureaucratic obstacles
to the U.S. immigration system at
the same time the president
wants to put physical barriers
along the Mexico border. The ad-
ministration has slashed the
number of refugees admitted to
the United States, tightened ac-
cess to the asylum system and
expanded the power of the gov-
ernment to detain and deport
immigrants who lack legal status.
Analysts say the public charge
change could dramatically reduce
family-based legal immigration
to the United States, particularly
from Latin America and Africa,
where incomes are generally low-
er than the rest of the world. It
also could lead to an increase in
deportations, as those present
with some form of provisional or
temporary immigration status in
the United States are denied legal
residency.
A USCIS official said the
change will have little to no effect
on those who already have perma-
nent resident status who are seek-
ing to become naturalized U.S.
citizens. “Naturalization appli-
cants are not subject to a new
admissibility determination and
therefore are not generally sub-
ject to public charge determina-
tions,” said the official, who spoke

IMMIGRATION FROM A

Change would skew policy in favor of highly skilled, high-income immigrants

KEVIN D. LILES FOR THE WASHINGTON POST A Trump official said the “public charge” change aims at “reinforcing the ideals of self-sufficiency.”

BY ARELIS R. HERNÁNDEZ

mcallen, tex. — Dozens of
dirt-caked shoes popped out
from beneath the silver Mylar
blankets, where children lie on
mats, watching cartoons, and
parents cooed infants to sleep.
Inside the chain-link pens of U.S.
Border Patrol’s largest holding
facility, nearly 1,300 migrants
were waiting Monday to be re-
leased, deported or transferred.
Set up in a converted ware-
house during the 2014 child mi-
grant crisis, the Central Process-
ing Center was created as an
overflow site for families and
children. But in recent months it,
too, has been stuffed beyond
capacity. Derided as “la perrera”
— “the dog kennel” — by mi-
grants and border agents alike, it
was the focus of public anger
when photographs of children
behind the chain links circulated
last year and brought accusations
of “kids in cages.”
More waves of shock and anger
at scenes of miserable, inhumane
border conditions have followed,
most recently last month when
Vice President Pence visited the
McAllen border station nearby
and saw nearly 400 men packed
in a pestilent garage.
The Department of Homeland
Security tightly limits media ac-
cess and photography inside Bor-
der Patrol facilities, citing the
privacy rights of migrants in its
custody. But the restrictions have
made it difficult for the agency to
convince the public that the bor-
der is in crisis, and the Trump
administration has allowed more
video cameras and photogra-
phers inside its facilities, even
though the images of detained
children often generate anger
and disgust.
The number of people in cus-
tody fluctuates daily — and some-
times hourly — at the processing
center, as hundreds of thousands
of adults and children from El
Salvador, Honduras and Guate-
mala continue arriving at the
U.S.-Mexico border despite the
scorching summer weather.
Movement is constant inside the
rancid — though much improved
— facility, with bus loads of immi-
grants being moved in and out of
the border city.
Arrests along the Southern
border have dropped 43 percent
since May, when U.S. agents took
144,000 migrants into custody,
the busiest month in a dozen
years. But border-crossings are

still at twice the level they were last year, and the tip of South Texas remains the busiest corri- dor. Nearly 37,000 people were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector last month, U.S. data shows. “We want to give folks a sense of what is going on down here,” said Border Patrol agent Marceli- no “Alex” Medina.

Inside the cavernous pair of warehouses in Southwestern McAllen, migrants are medically screened for common ailments and contagious diseases such as scabies, lice or chickenpox. Those needing medical help beyond ba- sic services are sent to local hospitals, agents said. Workers have access to face masks and gloves when entering

one of two large containment areas, although the center is not immune from contagious diseases; the processing center had an outbreak of an influenza-like ill- ness in late May that led Border Patrol to stop admitting people until the infections died down. Once medically cleared, migrants are sent into holding pens. The center has seen tens of thou-

sands of children and families since 2014. Unaccompanied children are separated by gender and kept in distinct pens, where they have access to crackers, juice and chips. A television runs program- ming for all hours except meal- times, and they can choose to don provided sweatpants, T-shirts and shoes.

“Children are held on average about 26 hours in custody,” said Oscar Escamilla, acting deputy Border Patrol agent-in-charge, who led a brief tour through the center. There were fewer than 100 unaccompanied children in Customs and Border Protection custody at the time of the tour on Monday — far from the peak a few months ago, when children were backed up in the immigration system and were crowded into the agency’s facilities, some- times for weeks. During the tour, journalists were not permitted to talk to the migrants in custody, and most shied away from the cameras. Many retreated deeper within their pens and turned away. Parents with children are held in separate enclosures, where dozens of men and women sat on metal benches or laid across gym mats on the concrete floor. Esca- milla said migrants receive “shower wipes” or wet wipes when they first arrive, and they are permitted to take a shower within 72 hours. Tired men bounced little boys on their knees, children munched on apples and others hid beneath blankets in the cell adjacent to a play area with a plastic playpen and a few toys. In one corner sat shelving units filled with clothes, baby formula, colorful tooth- brushes and diapers. Inside each section of cells, a guard monitors camera footage and keeps watch from a small tower elevated about eight feet from the ground. Escamilla said the agency chose chain-link fenc- ing because it allows more visibil- ity for agents and can help cut down on staffing needs. Migrants can move freely within their respective holding pens, but unaccompanied minors, girls over the age of 10 and small children are assigned separate fenced-in areas. Between each holding area is a sanitation station containing about a dozen portable toilets and sinks that are cleaned twice a day. There was no escaping the foul stench of days of accumulated dirt, sweat and waste — even with a far smaller number of detainees than when lawmakers visited the center in June and reported ram- pant overcrowding and horrible conditions. arelis.hernandez@washpost.com

Nick Miroff in Washington contributed to this report.

A glimpse into processing facility at heart of border crisis

PHOTOS BY CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST Journalists were allowed access to the Central Processing Center in McAllen, Tex., on Monday, when nearly 1,300 migrants were being held at the Border Patrol’s largest holding facility. Journalists were not allowed to speak to the migrants, who mostly shied from cameras.

The Washington Post - 13.08.2019

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources