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Heartless Public Benefit Regulation Hurts Immigrants and All of Us

Photo by Mary Turck

August 12, 2019—The new public charge rule, now set to be published on August 14 and to go into effect 60 days later, will harm residents, communities and economies in every state in the country. As immigrants and their families give up needed health care, food, and affordable housing, their health, well-being and economic stability are threatened. This will be felt not just by immigrants and their families, but also by all members of our communities.

NOTE: For further information and links to resources from many organizations, see ILCM’s Public Charge/Public Benefits page.

Immigrants and their U.S. citizen family members are already giving up access to public benefits that they are entitled to under law. The “chilling effect” of the rule began before it was even official, with immigrant families refusing public benefits to which family members were legally entitled. One in seven adults in immigrant families reported forgoing public benefits in 2018 because of fear of the public charge rule. Among low-income families, this chilling effect is even stronger, affecting one adult in five.

“The public charge rule is one more example of the heartless and hateful anti-immigrant policies promulgated by this administration,” said Lenore Millibergity, acting executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “Immigrants are less likely to use public benefit programs, using 39 percent fewer welfare and entitlements benefits per person than native-born Americans.

“The way to strengthen our country is to strengthen the families who live here. Today, one child in four has at least one immigrant parent. The administration’s bullying tactics, its use of fear and intimidation as a substitute for actual policy, does harm to these children and families and to the entire country.”

NOTE: For further information and links to resources from many organizations, see ILCM’s Public Charge/Public Benefits page.

 

 

 

End Hate Speech That Inspires Violence

After the devastating massacres in El Paso and Dayton this weekend, we demand an end to hate speech from political leaders and a shift in policy to protecting rather than attacking immigrants, people of color, Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ+ communities, and other minorities now in peril.

The young white nationalist who massacred 20 people in El Paso and wounded more than two dozen others was inspired by racist and ant-immigrant hatred. He was precisely the kind of lone wolf that FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the Senate Judiciary Committee about less than two weeks ago. In testimony to the committee, Wray said:

“The FBI is most concerned about lone offender attacks, primarily shootings, as they have served as the dominant lethal mode for domestic violent extremist attacks. We anticipate law enforcement, racial minorities and the U.S. government will continue to be significant targets for many domestic violent extremists.”

The ADL annual report on murder and extremism in the United States found that in 2018, “every single extremist killing—from Pittsburgh to Parkland—had a link to right-wing extremism” and that “white supremacists were responsible for the great majority of the killings.” Perpetrators of violence are informed not only by divisive, racist, anti-immigrant tweets and public statements, but also by witnessing inhumane policies that treat immigrants and their children as subhuman. These include denial of asylum to immigrants seeking safe haven, forcing asylum seekers into filthy, overcrowded jail cells, and ongoing attacks on our legal immigration system.

“Those political leaders who marginalize and demonize immigrant, Black, brown, LGBTQ and other communities are aiming the guns, even if individual white nationalists are pulling the triggers,” said Lenore Millibergity, interim director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “We need cultural and policy changes to end this epidemic of domestic white nationalist terrorism.”

Congressional leaders from both parties must step up and condemn racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Such irresponsible rhetoric inspires the violence that continues to take innocent lives.