The expanded prohibition of the Trump administration of immigrants to social services, such as Head Start and Meals on Wheels, could have an “devastating” impact on immigrants, including US citizens, said hundreds of opponents to the federal government on Wednesday.
A total of 372 organizations have merged to oppose the decision of the administration to take health and human services more funded by the federal government to immigrants to immigrants with some type of permission to be in the country.
Groups say that the administration erroneously promotes expanded restrictions as part of their efforts to address illegal immigration. The policy in reality “is directly addressed to immigrants legally” when converting early learning centers, community health centers and mental health and addiction treatment programs “in immigration control points”, where suppliers would have to verify the immigration state of a person, according to groups.
“Undocumented immigrants are no longer eligible for most of the programs financed by the federal government. This is another case in which the Administration is lying to the public,” said Adriana Cadena, director of the Protecting Coalition of immigration families, which led to the opposition of organizations to the restrictions to be implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
As a result, the restrictions will damage millions, the groups declared in the official comments presented in response to the expanded restrictions of the Administration, published in the Federal Registry on July 14.
The deadline for public comments on the new restrictions was established for 11:59 pm on Wednesday.
One in 4 children in the United States is in a family with at least one immigrant father. In 2023, 86% of those children were born in the United States, making them American citizens, according to Migration Policy Institute, a group of immigration experts. (President Donald Trump also wants to change that citizenship of birth law).
Even if an American citizen child has the right to use a program, it is likely that Trump administration restrictions cause confusion and misunderstandings, said Cadena, due to many children who are in families whose members have different types of immigration status.
“This will have long -term consequences that we cannot begin to understand,” he said.
In response to a request for comments from NBC News, the White House sent a link to a press release on July 10, HHS announcing the new restrictions. The administration said in the statement that it was ensuring that public benefits were not “diverted to subsidize illegal foreigners.”
“For too long, the Government has diverted the tax workers of the Americans to encourage illegal immigration,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., at the launch of July 10. “Today’s action changes that: integrity restores federal social programs, enforces the rule of law and protects vital resources for the American people.”
Expand the restricted programs to ‘qualified’ immigrants
The Law of Reconciliation of Personal Responsibility of 1996 restricted the eligibility for federal public benefits to certain “qualified” immigrants, according to KFF, a health policy group.
Qualified immigrants have been defined as those who are legally present in the USA and do not include people with temporary protected status, those who have deferred the action for children’s arrivals (DACA) and others, Kff reported.
The HHS has added 13 more programs to the list of open programs only to qualified immigrants.
Those recently added by the Administration include Head Start, some of the funds for community health centers, family planning services, child welfare prevention, kinship assistance, prevention of substance abuse, treatment and recovery and mental health services and the subsidy of community service block, the groups said. The federal government has said that the list is not integral and that more programs could be added later.
The groups argue that the programs and access of immigrants to them have a greater benefit for society as a whole and that “reducing access to these vital programs will make all our communities less healthy, less safe, less stable, less capable of prospering.”
The restrictions in the HHS programs announced in July would be immediately effective. The groups said that little guidance to suppliers has been granted with respect to their implementation, creating confusion and having a chilling effect on people who are eligible for programs and benefits, as well as in non -profit organizations, local governments and others that provide them.
Several states have sued for the changes, which according to them would also affect programs such as Meals on Wheels, shelters of domestic violence, housing assistance and more. The American Union of Civil Libertads also filed a lawsuit on behalf of the groups of parents who defy Trump’s policies in Head Start.
The administration provided a period of 30 -day comments for new restrictions.
“We do not necessarily hope there is a real interest of the administration to find comments on public policies that affect millions of people,” Cadena said.
“This is the Trump administration government attack against immigrant families and to dismantle the security networks system in which many Americans trust,” he said.
