This Quiet Change to Immigration Policy Is a Big Deal

While ICE raids dominate headlines, another important move on immigration policy has received far less attention: the Trump administration restoring the teeth to the public charge doctrine, a long-standing part of American immigration law. Aggressive street enforcement is noisier, obviously, but administrative changes to immigration can produce effects that are just as significant. The details matter.

The issue of immigrants (legal and otherwise) and public benefits has a long history. Strong opposition to the immigration of “paupers” predates the implementation of federal immigration controls. And even before the Revolution, several colonies enacted measures to bar the settlement of individuals who might become public charges. Since then, American immigration law has generally sought to exclude such immigrants, though enforcement has varied considerably over time.

The expectation was that immigrants would earn their own livings in their new country. Under the rules then in effect, those without cash in their pockets were expected to show at places like Castle Garden—and, later, Ellis Island—that they could work to support themselves. Most didn’t find this especially difficult, as America was a booming nation, with factories in need of untold numbers of unskilled laborers and vast tracts of empty land that needed to be worked. The immigration system then in place fit its times—a crucial lesson.

Government benefits barely existed; the needy relied instead on Dickensian poorhouses or private charities. In the near-complete absence of federal assistance, states that received large numbers of immigrants established agencies like the New York Board of the Commissioners of Emigration in 1847 to inspect newcomers and provide temporary medical aid. Many states required ship captains to pay a “head tax” or post indemnity bonds for passengers deemed likely to need help. If an immigrant ended up in a public hospital or poorhouse within a few years of arrival, the state used those bond funds to cover the costs.