https://www.fcd-us.org/an-all-out-assault-requires-an-all-in-response/
In 2017, the Protecting Immigrant Families (PIF) coalition began as a unified response to the then-new Trump administration’s “public charge” attack on immigrant families. Nearly 10 years later, we find ourselves fighting another Trump administration public charge policy, one that uses immigrant families as a weapon against the safety net, and the safety net as a weapon against immigrant families. The attack this time is much more comprehensive and dangerous, and it demands a much more comprehensive and creative response.
Immigrants account for one-tenth of Black people in the U.S., one-third of Latine people, and nearly two-thirds of Asian American and Pacific Islander people. Immigrant families account for 28% of the country’s population, and more than a quarter of America’s children. That’s why the threat unites CLASP and other safety net advocates with NILC and immigrants rights organizations: targeting immigrant families’ use of safety net programs widens the racially disparate impact of problems ranging from infant mortality to economic opportunity. This compounds a harsh economic reality driven by low wage employment and under-use of the very programs meant to help struggling families.
In 2018, when the Trump administration proposed a “public charge” regulation putting green cards at risk for using safety net services, PIF was ready. We organized comments from the field’s most authoritative voices, from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and generated a record-breaking 266,064 public comments opposing the change. After the regulation was finalized, PIF members litigated to first block it, and in 2021, to strike it down for good.
The 2026 public charge rule changes everything
On its return to office, the second Trump administration launched an even broader public charge attack. The 2026 rule, proposed last fall and finalized just weeks ago, takes effect in September and gives immigration officials sweeping new discretion: they can now deny a green card because a green card applicant or an applicant’s U.S. citizen child or spouse used health or social services, or because an applicant is disabled or overweight, factors that have nothing to do with whether someone belongs here.
The new policy is much more dangerous than the old one, but the threat is compounded because the environment in which this regulation will take effect is also much more dangerous than before. When the first public charge regulation took effect in 2020, the administration was engaging in family separation and detention. While horrific, that practice was largely confined to families apprehended at the border.
Today, the administration’s violent enforcement agenda is everywhere. We are experiencing militarized assaults on cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, Minneapolis, a recent uptick in fatal ICE shootings, most recently in Houston, Texas, and Biddeford, Maine, and intensified enforcement across the country. Masked ICE deployments routinely roam residential neighborhoods, snatching people off the street – often in front of their children and sometimes never to be seen again. The scale is also immense, with ICE already having arrested hundreds of thousands of people in immigrant families and wreaked havoc on the culture, health, and economies of immigrants and the communities that welcome them.
While ICE’s deadly enforcement tactics have commanded the headlines, the assault on immigrant families is much broader. The administration has changed or attempted to change dozens of social programs critical to children in immigrant families, pushed Congress to exclude lawfully present immigrants from health and food programs, and proposed a HUD rule that would require citizenship verification of every person receiving housing assistance, evicting U.S. citizens in immigrant families in the process. And it has perverted the operation of federal agencies against the very families they’re supposed to serve:
- Illegally sharing SNAP and Medicaid data to ICE
- Revived plans to exclude immigrants from the Census
- Falsely labeling immigrants as deceased in Social Security records, cutting them off from banks and other services everyday life requires.
The administration has also pushed the limits of federalism to deny immigrant families the care and support every family needs to thrive. From laws in Texas and Florida requiring hospitals to report patients’ immigration status to Tennessee’s law denying lifesaving care to immigrant children with severe disabilities and illnesses, the Trump administration has outsourced dangerous, racist, and exclusionary safety net policies to states.
These policies use basic needs programs as a weapon against immigrant families while scapegoating immigrants to shred the safety net.
The administration’s “War on Fraud” follows this pattern. Announced during February’s State of the Union Address, immigrants of color were the War on Fraud’s scapegoats from the start. “Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings us problems right here to the USA,” said Trump.
The administration has harassed day care providers in immigrant communities, but the real campaign has been wholesale restrictions of health and social services funding to states that welcome immigrants. Days after the speech, suspensions of child care, health care, and other funding hit families in multiple states, sending a clear message: stand with immigrant families and your entire population pays for it. The veneer is an effort to link immigrants and corruption. But underlying the veneer is a no-holds-barred attack on the safety net.
A coordinated assault requires a unified response
The Protecting Immigrant Families coalition is where organizations coordinate the defense of both immigrant families and the health and social services infrastructure that supports every family.
We hold the administration accountable, both for policy choices that drive up costs borne by working families and for safety net cuts that intensify the resulting damage. We’ve called out their lies about immigrant families and basic needs programs, and coordinated a response: helping grassroots members mitigate the impact, and organizing national allies to stand with immigrant families.
We leverage our coalition’s breadth to coordinate administrative advocacy, build the climate for legislative pushback, and sponsor research documenting these policies’ impact. We help policymakers, journalists, and community leaders to see that the abuses they have seen on the front page are part of a broader agenda that also denies health care, food, homes, and other basics to the same families brutalized by ICE violence. Take Medicaid data sharing and disinformation about SNAP eligibility. Both are safety net analogs of the same abuses and lies that drive the administration’s enforcement agenda, and shining a spotlight on them makes that connection unmistakable.
We believe in the importance of welcoming moderate voices who care about their immigrant coworkers and neighbors and appreciate their contributions to a vibrant economy. Some conservative officials, including members of Congress and governors, have broken with the administration on specific anti-immigrant policies. We believe there may be common ground with conservative faith communities and responsible corporate leaders. We engage with industry-focused news outlets and encourage PIF member organizations to cultivate diverse coalitions.
Narrative change is slow, but this approach is already making headway, in both national and regional forums, and beyond thought leaders. Our poll earlier this year found:
- 83% of Americans (including ¾ of Republicans) support health and social services for lawfully present immigrants
- Majorities oppose using Medicaid data to inform ICE raids and enforcement actions at schools, hospitals, and social community infrastructure locations
- And majorities are concerned that anti-immigrant policies are threatening the health and economic stability of U.S. citizens in immigrant families
A role for all of us
Collective response is essential. By commenting on proposed rules, advocating for just laws, or protesting in the streets, we must all join the fight. Here’s how:
- Hold power accountable. Call out the lies about immigrant families and basic needs programs, and don’t let policy choices that drive up costs get separated from the safety net cuts that intensify the damage.
- Connect the dots publicly. Enforcement abuses and safety net abuses are the same agenda. Naming that connection, from Medicaid data sharing to SNAP disinformation, makes it harder for the administration to run one attack while hiding the other.
- Build unlikely alliances. Engage moderate voices, faith communities, and local leaders who may not agree with you on everything but won’t stand for this.
- Resist responsibly. Protecting families means equipping them with accurate information so they can make the best choices for their families. This might mean families continuing to use public benefits so their children have food, healthcare, and housing. Continuing to use public benefits programs intended to provide help, when needed, is also an act of resistance.
We do this work because we believe access to support, when you need it, is not a privilege to be earned. It’s something society and government owe every family.
We also do this work because attacks on immigrant families and the safety net are intended to move the nation away from democratic principles and toward authoritarianism. They undermine the economic stability of working families of all backgrounds, letting costs for essentials like food and housing rise while cutting basic needs programs that mitigate the harm. They then scapegoat immigrants to maintain power by sowing division among the very people feeling the pain. And they hamstring transparency, accountability, and other democratic norms central to the liberty we all treasure.
We must all make the case that the abuses and harms resulting from enforcement run amok are part of a broader anti-immigrant agenda that includes abuses and harms to basic needs programs that protect us all. And we must make the case that the weakening of democratic norms, institutions, and laws is as dangerous in the context of safety net programs as it is in the context of law enforcement.
To do this, we must all engage as we can, bringing our distinct talents and assets to the fight and banding together with ingenuity, resolve, fearlessness, and above all, heart.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Foundation.