Immigrants afraid of Trump’s ‘public charge’ rule are dropping food stamps, MediCal
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2019/09/immigrants-afraid-of-trumps-public.html
An applicant signs up for food stamps, known as CalFreshin California, at a low-income health clinic in Contra Costa County. Under a new Trump administration rule, immigrants who receive public benefits may have a harder time getting green cards, and many are dropping the program out of fear of immigration authorities.Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
An applicant signs up for food stamps, known as CalFreshin California, at a low-income health clinic in Contra Costa County. Under a new Trump administration rule, immigrants who receive public benefits may have a harder time getting green cards, and many are dropping the program out of fear of immigration authorities.Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
By Erica Hellerstein, The Mercury News, CalMatters.org |
Last
month, Yuri sat in her dining room in San Jose, turned on the T.V., and heard
something that made her sit up straight and sent her mind racing.
The Trump
administration, the newscaster announced, had just published a new rule that
could make it harder for immigrants to get a green card if they used, or were
likely to use, public government benefits like food stamps or Medicaid.
Yuri, who
came to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, was enrolled in CalFresh,
California’s food stamp program, for her 7 children, who range in age from just
over a month to 15 and who all were born in this country. But with the new
rule, Yuri, wondered, would staying on food stamps imperil her asylum
application or get her deported? Would she and her family have to move back to
Michoacán, one of the Mexican states with the worst cartel violence?
She decided to terminate food stamps for her kids and to
dis-enroll herself from MediCal, despite some health complications she said
accompanied her latest pregnancy. She worries, she said, about how she will
keep her children’s bellies full without food stamps. But she doesn’t want the
use of social service programs to put her at risk for deportation somehow.
Across
California, the looming change in what is known as the “public charge” rule is
sowing confusion and fear within the immigrant community, causing many people
to abandon programs they need for fear of retaliation from immigration
authorities, according to nearly two dozen interviews with health care
providers, lawyers, nonprofit organizations, and social service agencies.
The new
rule could affect more than 2 million Californians, most of whom are not
subject to the regulation, and could result in 765,000 people dis-enrolling
from MediCal and CalFresh, according to UCLA’s Center for Health Policy
Research.
Yuri, who
did not want her last name used for fear of drawing attention to her family,
would not be affected by the rule change: Refugees and asylees are exempted from
the policy, as are the food stamps she gets for her children, who are citizens.
But many immigrants like her, who are not subject to the rule are feeling the
chilling effect, with some withdrawing from social services unnecessarily.
Social
service experts describe patients staying away from crucial medical
appointments, domestic violence survivors avoiding food stamps, a crime victim
with a humanitarian visa dropping health coverage during treatment for cancer,
and parents considering removing their children from benefits ranging from free
and reduced school lunches to health coverage.
Currently,
green card applicants must prove they will not be a financial burden — referred
to as a “public charge” — on the United States through use of cash welfare
programs or publicly funded institutional care. The new regulation, which if it
survives legal challenges will take effect in mid-October, would expand the
public charge definition to include Medicaid, food stamps, and housing
vouchers. Immigration officials will also consider income, education, English
language abilities, and health when making a determination.
Claribel
Chavez, an outreach worker for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley,
said the primary reason the people she talks to resist signing up for food
stamps is public charge.
“They’re
just not doing it because they are scared,” she said. “They say, ‘We would
rather struggle than put our name into the system.’ It’s getting bad.”
In
August, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties sued the
Trump administration over the regulation and filed a joint motion for a
preliminary injunction seeking to block the rule before it takes effect. The motion argues
that the rule, if implemented, would cause “irreparable harm” to the counties
and “will cause individuals to dis-enroll from or forgo critical public
benefits out of fear of potential immigration consequences.” California is one
of a number of
states suing to block the policy.
In its publication of
the rule change, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 324,000
people in households with non-citizens will withdraw or stay away from public
benefits because of the change.
But immigrants‘ rights advocates said they expect the
affected pool to be much larger, because the effects are trickling down to
legal immigrants and mixed status families who, fearing negative consequences,
may now withdraw or stay away from housing assistance, health care or other
social services. A recent report by
the Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, estimated that the rule could result
in up to 4.7 million people withdrawing from MediCaid and The Children’s Health
Insurance Program (CHIP).
Although
it is difficult to measure the full impacts of the policy before it takes
effect, there are some suggestions that it may already be having an influence.
In San
Francisco County, according to court records, food stamp enrollment in
households with at least one noncitizen dropped sharply when the proposed rule
was announced in the fall of 2018, while citizen household enrollment remained
relatively steady.
In Santa
Clara County, data provided in court
records indicates that the number of households receiving food
stamps with at least one member who is not a citizen decreased 20% — or from
about 15,000 to about 12,000 — from October 2018 to May 2019. During the same
time period, food stamp enrollment in citizen households stayed at roughly
26,000. The records also show that MediCal participation in households with at
least one noncitizen decreased 13.5% from the fall of 2018 to July 2019, while
participation in citizen households increased 6%.
For
health care providers in the Bay Area, the prospect of patients declining
medical care is worrisome. Santa Clara County has the fourth highest rate of
tuberculosis in California, according to Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s director
of public health, with almost 10% of the population infected with latent TB.
Patients forgoing evaluation and treatment could heighten the risk for
spreading infection to county residents, she said.
Jane
Garcia, the chief executive officer of La Clinica health clinic, which operates
in Alameda, Solano, and Contra Costa counties, said health care providers have
reported patients skipping appointments and dis-enrolling from county health
programs, as well as from MediCal. She said she gets 3-4 emails a day from
doctors reporting appointment cancellations and no-shows.
Greg C.
Garrett, the chief policy and external affairs officer of the Alameda Health
Consortium, shared the story of a 13-year-old U.S. citizen with severe
depression and schizophrenia whose mother withdrew her from health services
because she was afraid of the public charge rule.
“Her
provider told me she is having nightmares wondering what is happening with this
young girl because of her issues,” Garrett said.
Asylum
seekers and refugees would be exempt from the current rule, as would victims of
domestic violence and trafficking. But advocates and lawyers who work with
those populations say that many of them, too, are confused about the 800-plus
page rule and have asked if they should reconsider using benefits.
In
addition, neither the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women,
Infants, and Children (WIC) nor free and reduced price school lunch programs
would be affected by the change, but social service providers in the Bay Area
say recipients of both benefits have expressed concern about continuing their
enrollment.
As for
Yuri, the path forward is one without CalFresh for her children, and, although
she is seeking the advice of an immigration lawyer, legal consultation seems
unlikely to change her mind about withdrawing. For now, she said, it all just
seems too uncertain.
“We don’t
want to have the risk,” she says, rocking her newborn’s pink crib. “You never
know what’s going to happen.”
Erica
Hellerstein is a journalist at The Mercury News in San Jose working for The
California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequity
and economic survival in California.
Post a Comment