As part of its ongoing attack on immigrant families and children, the Trump administration is proposing a rule that bars immigrants from gaining citizenship if they received essential assistance from public programs such as health care, food stamps, or housing. This proposal is an inhumane tactic designed purely to make hardworking immigrants’ lives harder.

This proposal is already having a negative impact on immigrant families and children, including U.S. citizens.

The Hill: “Several policies targeting immigrant communities, like the administration’s public charge proposal, are likely deterring parents from enrolling their eligible children in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, despite the fact that most of these children are U.S. citizens.”

NBC News: “Marlene said other immigrants she knows — who, like her, have been in the U.S. for more than a decade — have also opted to stop using benefits like food stamps to avoid jeopardizing their chances of getting a green card.”

Kaiser Health News: “OLE Health, a large health provider based in Napa Valley, California, that serves many immigrants says it has seen people disenroll from Medicaid in the past year. Chief Executive Officer Alicia Hardy says many have dropped coverage over fears the help could jeopardize their immigration status.”

Public assistance spurs economic growth by lifting people out of poverty, and this proposal is a major step back.

Chicago Tribune: “Local advocates for immigrants say the proposal goes too far and will result in families, particularly those that include both citizens and noncitizens, skimping on health care and other necessities out of fear that using those public benefits could jeopardize their chances of legally staying in the U.S. That will ultimately cost taxpayers more in the long run, they say.”

Spokesman-Review: “The Public Charge proposal solves no problem and makes old ones worse. It sets us backward in the fight against poverty, deepens inequity and drives immigrant communities deeper into the shadows. Our broken immigration system needs humane and comprehensive reform, not a fringe ideological effort to target honest families.”

Leaders across the country are standing up to the Trump administration and their attacks on immigrants.

Washington Post: “The city of Baltimore on Wednesday filed what advocates call a first-in-the-nation lawsuit challenging President Trump’s efforts to curtail legal immigration by penalizing people who use public benefits. The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration’s expanded definition of ‘public charges’ has had a chilling effect on the city’s immigrant community, which Baltimore officials see as key to its revival.”

Wisconsin Public Radio: “Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said multiple studies show from 2000 to 2018, immigrants have spent half as much on health care as United States-born citizens and contributed $14 billion more to the Medicare Trust Fund than they withdrew. ‘Anyone who tells you they are costing the system more money is wrong,’ Abele said.”

Portland Press Herald: “Three newly re-elected Portland city councilors were sworn in for new terms Monday, and one of the first orders of business was to help pass a resolution opposing a Trump administration proposal to make more immigrants ineligible for citizenship if they accept public assistance, such as food stamps, health care or housing assistance.”