Good news -- the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked the Trump regime's rules against granting residency to immigrants who would theoretically qualify for any public assistance program.
Trump's rule, which is effectively a ban on poor immigrants, would have blocked residency for immigrants who qualify for programs such as Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) even if they never use those program.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - WA federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to set aside an injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a rule that would withhold green cards from immigrants likely to require government assistance such as Medicaid or food stamps.
In a brief order, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan also set an expedited schedule for the White House’s appeal of a lower court ruling against the rule, with legal papers to be submitted by Feb. 14 and oral arguments to be held soon afterward.
The “public charge” rule unveiled last year would make it harder for immigrants who are poor or need government help to secure residency and stay in the country.
Because we're now in the last year of Trump's first and hopefully only term in office, it's possible this will still be caught up in court and never go into effect before Trump is gone.
The idea that we should prohibit legal immigrants from gaining permanent residency for using programs they will pay for in their own taxes is nonsensical, if you ask me, and the idea that we should prohibit them from gaining residency for merely qualifying for those programs is asinine.
Many if not most legal immigrants pay more in taxes than your average American and they certainly pay more as a proportion of their income than the super rich we effectively subsidize through our generous tax code.
If we were to say that legal immigrants cannot use the assistance programs they pay for with their taxes, what we're saying is they should subsidize the rest of America by paying into a pool they can never withdraw from.