The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is set to rescind a 2022 Biden-era regulation that had narrowed how immigration officers apply the "public charge" test, an immigration screening tool used to assess whether applicants are likely to rely on government support. This change will broaden scrutiny of hundreds of thousands of green card applicants annually by allowing officers to consider use of taxpayer-funded benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance when determining eligibility for permanent legal status.

Under existing federal immigration law, individuals applying for visas, admission, or green cards can be deemed inadmissible if they are likely "at any time" to become primarily dependent on government support. The Biden-era rule limited DHS to considering primarily cash welfare payments and long-term institutional care funded by the federal government. The new final rule restores the broader discretion USCIS had during the first Trump administration, enabling case-by-case reviews that include factors like age, health, family status, assets, education, skills, and receipt of means-tested benefits.

Between fiscal years 2020 and 2024, DHS reported that public charge denials of adjustment-of-status applications ranged from 41 to 95 annually. During the period when the 2019 Trump rule was in effect, DHS identified just five cases of denials or notices of intent to deny based on the full public charge analysis; those cases were later reopened or rescinded.

The policy shift may have wider implications if immigrant families avoid legally qualified health care, food, or housing assistance out of fear that using these benefits could negatively impact their immigration cases.

A DHS statement noted the move "is reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources and ending policies that encouraged dependency on the backs of hard-working American taxpayers." Under President Trump, USCIS emphasized the principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves. After President Biden took office, DHS stopped defending the Trump-era rule and issued the 2022 regulation that largely returned to a narrower approach similar to that of 1999.

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