Green card applicants can now be denied for using Medicaid, food stamps or housing aid

Starting September 18, 2026, immigrants applying for a green card can be denied permanent residency if they — or certain members of their household — have used Medicaid, food stamps, housing assistance, free school lunch programs, tuition assistance, or other means-tested government benefits. The Trump administration rule, which rescinded a narrower Biden-era policy, hands immigration officers wide discretion to weigh benefit use as evidence that an applicant is likely to become dependent on government assistance — a legal standard known as "public charge."

The change applies only to green card applications postmarked or electronically filed on or after September 18, 2026. Anyone whose application was already pending before that date will be evaluated under the prior 2022 rule, which limited public charge concerns almost entirely to direct cash aid and long-term government-funded institutional care.

Under the new guidance — published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on August 18 and incorporated into the USCIS Policy Manual — adjudicators can consider any means-tested benefit, meaning any program for which eligibility is based on a family's income level. Critically, officers can also weigh benefits received by certain family members of the applicant, even if the applicant personally never used a program, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Benefit use is weighed as one factor in a "totality of circumstances" review; receipt of a benefit alone does not automatically trigger a denial. But critics say the absence of clear thresholds creates dangerous uncertainty.

The lack of specificity makes it really hard for any family to know what [government-provided benefit] is safe to use.— Julia Gelatt, associate director, Migration Policy Institute

The Department of Homeland Security framed the rule in stark terms. A DHS policy document states that "aliens in the United States should be self-reliant" and that "government benefits should not incentivize immigration." The agency estimated the rule could reduce federal and state payments by $13 billion a year by persuading roughly 950,000 people to disenroll from or avoid safety-net programs, according to Yahoo News.

The public charge concept has existed in U.S. immigration law since 1882, but for decades only direct cash payments — such as disability income — and long-term government-funded hospitalization were treated as disqualifying. The first Trump administration attempted a similar expansion in 2019; courts blocked it, but not before it triggered a measurable drop in safety-net enrollment among immigrant households, according to an Urban Institute report cited by Yahoo News.

The new rule covers a broad range of applicants: immediate family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, including spouses, children and fiancés, as well as skilled and religious workers. It does not apply to refugees, asylum seekers, or certain other humanitarian categories.

This week, New York led a coalition of 21 other states, the District of Columbia, and several cities in suing the Trump administration over the rule, arguing it fails to account for the harms it will cause to mixed-status families and U.S. citizen children, according to Yahoo News.

Cruelty is the point. Having a chilling effect on immigrants is the point. Letting individuals know that they are not welcome here is the point.— Letitia James, New York Attorney General

The ILRC notes that although the rule is now in effect, ongoing litigation could result in it being paused or halted. The changes are not retroactive.

There is a separate, compounding risk for applicants who plan to leave the United States to complete their green card interview at a U.S. consulate or embassy abroad. The Department of State has already issued new guidance expected to expand visa denials on public charge grounds at consulates, and the government is appealing a federal court ruling that struck down an earlier blanket visa pause affecting nationals of 75 countries. The ILRC strongly advises anyone considering consular processing to consult a legal representative before departing the country.

Importantly, changes to public charge immigration policy do not alter an immigrant's legal eligibility to enroll in public benefits programs. The public charge assessment happens only at the point of a green card application — not when someone signs up for Medicaid or food stamps. But immigration advocates warn that fear of consequences will lead many eligible families, including those with U.S. citizen children, to forgo benefits they are legally entitled to use.

Why it matters — Millions of immigrants — including spouses and children of U.S. citizens — now face a choice between using legally available health, food, and housing benefits and jeopardizing their path to permanent residency, with courts still deciding whether the rule will stand.

Reported by nytimes.com, ilrc.org, yahoo.com