“This new guidance utilizes confusion to penalize law-abiding parents who are trying to feed their kids through programs for which they are eligible,” said Kelemen. “This will only make our kids hungrier, and its impacts will be felt by everyone, not just immigrant families.”
Contact: Ceci Henriquez, chenriquez@strength.org
WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued new public charge guidance that is set to take place on September 18. This follows an announcement this past July removing the clear rules in place for lawfully present immigrants applying for a green card on what benefits constitute a public charge. The new guidance replaces that rule with a broad interpretation of public charge that depends on the subjective determination from immigration officers. It also indicates that immigration officers are now allowed to consider benefits used by certain family members of green card applicants, including their U.S. citizen children, as part of the public charge test. The following is a statement from George Kelemen, senior vice president for Share Our Strength and its No Kid Hungry campaign:
“This policy change is coming at a time when the rise in food prices is already forcing families to make impossible trade-offs to put food on the table. We continue to urge DHS to set forth commonsense guidance so that eligible kids can continue to access nutritious food and benefits from programs like SNAP, WIC, school meals, and Summer EBT. These programs are an investment in children’s future. They help kids grow up smarter, stronger and healthier and that means a smarter, stronger, healthier nation.
“This guidance harms U.S. citizen kids in an unprecedented way and provides an alarming level of ambiguity that is ripe for abuse, allowing for discriminatory and arbitrary decisions to be directed at people trying to follow the rules, ultimately creating a larger chilling effect than we’ve seen before, hurting American kids, families and communities.
“This new guidance utilizes confusion to penalize law-abiding parents who are trying to feed their kids through programs for which they are eligible. This will only make our kids hungrier, and its impacts will be felt by everyone, not just immigrant families."
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About No Kid Hungry
No child should go hungry in America. But millions of kids in the United States live with hunger. No Kid Hungry is working to end childhood hunger by helping launch and improve programs that give all kids the healthy food they need to thrive. This is a problem we know how to solve. No Kid Hungry is a campaign of Share Our Strength, an organization committed to ending hunger and poverty.