The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking to change a rule that determines eligibility for permanent residency—commonly known as a green card—based on whether an applicant is considered a “public charge,” someone who is likely to depend primarily on public benefits.

That rule—known as the public charge ground of inadmissibility—generally applies to green card applicants, with the exception of certain categories such as refugees and asylum seekers.

In 2022, 54 percent of households headed by immigrants—naturalized, legal, and illegal—used one or more major welfare programs. That’s compared to 39 percent of U.S.-born households, according to Census Bureau data.

In November 2025, DHS issued a proposal to repeal existing public charge regulations and institute a broader, discretionary standard.

The proposed policy change would allow immigration officials to take into account the use of a wider range of public benefits—including food stamps, Medicaid, and housing assistance—to determine whether a green card applicant will become a public charge.

In its notice of proposed rulemaking, DHS states its goal is to encourage self-reliance and prevent public benefits from becoming an incentive for immigration.

Critics say the proposed policy change will lead to confusion and “decreased participation in public benefit programs” by people who need them.

The mandatory public comment period for the proposed rule ended on Dec. 19, 2025, drawing more than 8,800 comments, including a letter of objection signed by the attorneys general of 20 states. DHS has now entered a mandatory review phase in which it must read and address the substantive points raised by the public.

Once this review is complete, which can take months, the government may modify the rule based on the feedback received before a final rule is published and officially takes effect.

Here’s what we know about the proposed changes.

Key Changes

The changes are designed to undo what the proposal calls “unduly restrictive” public charge rules. Under the old rules, put in place under the Biden administration in 2022, officers couldn’t consider whether green card applicants used benefits such as food stamps (SNAP), the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, or housing assistance.

The only benefits officers could take into account were cash benefit programs that provide direct, monthly payments intended to cover basic needs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income, as well as long-term care in a facility such as a nursing home, when the government pays for it.

Under the new proposal, officers would also be empowered to consider all individualized, case-specific facts and any data relevant to a person’s self-sufficiency.

The changes will restore a process that “trusts in and relies on DHS officers’ good judgment and sound discretion as envisioned by Congress,” the proposal says.

The new DHS proposal also clarifies that receiving “any means‑tested public benefit” is considered a breach of the public charge bond—a monetary guarantee, made by a citizen or U.S. company, that a green card applicant will not become a public charge.

Under the new proposal, an affidavit of support also carries less weight.

Currently, officers must “favorably consider” any eligible affidavit of support—an agreement in which a U.S. citizen, a green card holder, or a company pledges to provide financial backing to the applicant, if needed.

The new rule would also eliminate protection for immigrants who used benefits while they were in certain exempt categories.

For some of those categories, there is a path to citizenship that is also exempt from the public charge rule. For others, there is not—including those with Temporary Protected Status, which is a temporary stay of deportation provided to nationals of certain countries that are undergoing armed conflict, disaster, or other extraordinary conditions.

Under the 2022 rule, people with Temporary Protected Status were shielded from having public benefits used against them, even if they later moved into a non-protected status. The new proposal would allow DHS to consider an applicant’s use of public benefits at any time, regardless of when those benefits were received.

Household Focus

The new policy could cut government spending by about $8.97 billion each year because of people who would stop or avoid enrolling in public benefits, DHS stated in its proposal. That includes $5.29 billion less from the federal government and $3.68 billion less from states.

Under current rules, an applicant is mostly evaluated individually, whereas the new rule takes into account an applicant’s family members living in the same household, including a mixed-status household, which consists of people with different immigration and citizenship statuses.

There were an estimated 4.7 million mixed-status households in the United States in 2022, according to a Center for Migration Studies analysis. Mixed-status households receive more than $51 billion annually in public benefits, according to an analysis by The Epoch Times, based on DHS data.

However, public benefit use can’t be considered against immigrants in mixed-status households who entered the United States as refugees or asylum seekers. Between 1990 and 2022, the United States has welcomed more than 2.1 million refugees and accepted more than 800,000 asylees, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

DHS said the new rule could impact some U.S. citizens who live in mixed-status households. It could penalize green card applicants if direct family members in the household, including U.S. citizens, receive public benefits. Those U.S. citizens may decide to avoid public benefits so the green card applicant isn’t penalized.

Within mixed-status households, roughly 9.2 million individuals receive food stamps, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Supplemental Security Income. And about 343,000 households receive Federal Rental Assistance, according to DHS data.

DHS estimated that about 950,000 individuals, or 10 percent, will likely stop participating in or choose not to apply for public benefit programs if the current proposal is implemented.

Studies found large drops in benefit enrollment after the 1996 welfare reform law, with decreases ranging from 21 to 54 percent, DHS noted.

The new proposal acknowledged the changes could also affect organizations that rely on public benefit funds. These include hospitals and nonprofits tied to Medicaid, companies that make medical supplies and drugs, grocery stores that accept SNAP benefits, farmers who supply SNAP-eligible foods, and landlords involved in federally funded housing programs.

Evolution of the Policy

The United States has used “public charge” as grounds for rejecting permanent residency applications since the 19th century. The Immigration Act of 1882 specified that aliens who became public charges within a year of arriving in the United States would be deported.

For more than a century, immigration officers were given broad discretion, known as the “totality of the circumstances” framework.

Then, in 1996, Congress set new requirements and policy goals. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 required officers to consider, “at a minimum,” five statutory factors: age, health, family status, financial situation, and education and skills.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 established a “self-sufficiency” policy that aliens should be able to financially support themselves without depending on government assistance and that public benefits should not be an incentive for immigration to the United States.

In response to the 1996 laws, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (now DHS) issued guidance narrowing the “public charge” definition. The goal was to prevent immigrants from refusing necessary health services over concerns their visa applications would be rejected.

The 1999 Interim Field Guidance defined “public charge” as being “primarily dependent on the government for subsistence,” demonstrated by the receipt of “public cash assistance for income maintenance” or “institutionalization for long-term care at government expense.”

This guidance explicitly stated that non-cash benefits, such as food stamps or general medical care, and supplemental cash benefits should not be considered.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—the DHS agency that issues visas and green cards—followed the 1999 Interim Field Guidance for two decades.

In 2019, the Trump administration redefined a “public charge” as an alien who received one or more public benefits for more than 12 months total within any 36-month period.

The 2019 Final Rule expanded “public benefit” to include SNAP, most forms of Medicaid, and certain forms of subsidized housing, alongside cash assistance.

The expanded rule was subject to extensive litigation. In January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed it to become effective. But the Biden administration stopped enforcing it in March 2021.

And in December 2022, the Biden administration implemented a new public charge rule, which re-applied the narrower definitions from the 1999 Interim Field Guidance.

The Biden policy left “little opportunity for discretion or deviation,” the recent DHS proposal states.

The Rationale

Dropping the Biden-era rules will result in fewer aliens who are likely to rely on public benefits staying in the United States, the DHS proposal said. That matches Congress’s intent in the 1996 welfare law, the agency said.

“The administration and clear congressional national policy on welfare and immigration point to the view that an alien who lacks self-sufficiency should not be admitted to the United States or be granted adjustment of status to that of a lawful permanent resident,” DHS said.

Under the proposed rule, when federal or state governments change who can get need-based benefits, or change the value of those benefits, officers would have more flexibility to respond to those changing circumstances, DHS said. That’s what happened with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which made significant changes to health care, Medicaid, and nutrition benefits.

The proposal also supports the broader goal expressed in President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” which focused on preventing taxpayer money from being used in ways that encourage illegal immigration.

Opposition and Support

The policy change has drawn criticism from immigrants’ rights advocates, who express concern about its effects on illegal immigrants, as well as the “potentially chilling” effect on legal immigrants who may not seek health care or apply for other benefits for their families in order not to jeopardize illegal immigrants in their households.

“Reduced participation in health coverage and other assistance programs would negatively affect the health and financial stability of immigrant families and the growth and healthy development of their children,” according to a Dec. 2, 2025, analysis by health policy organization KFF.

One in 10 adult immigrants said they had stopped participating in or didn’t apply for a public assistance program in the last 12 months because they didn’t want to draw attention to their or a family member’s immigration status, according to KFF. Chilling effects are higher—42 percent—in households with likely illegal immigrant members, KFF said.

Both legal and illegal immigrants “make very extensive use of the welfare system as well,” said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies.

“And that raises the … question, why have a legal immigration system that admits so many people who can’t take care of themselves?” he told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.

“That’s not being caused by people cheating,” Camarota said. “That’s not being caused by people not working—most of them work—but they’re just poor. If you had to put it on a bumper sticker, it would be that there’s a high cost to cheap labor.”

“We should be careful about who we let in,” Camarota said. “Once here, it’s going to be very hard to stop people from getting benefits, so the goal should always be keeping out those who are going to need benefits.”