{"id":27389,"date":"2018-11-05T09:21:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T14:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=27389"},"modified":"2018-11-05T09:21:33","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T14:21:33","slug":"letter-public-charge-rule-will-hurt-children-and-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=27389","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Public Charge rule will hurt children and families"},"content":{"rendered":"

To The Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This month, there has been a new policy proposed from the White House, laying out potential revisions to the existing Public Charge law to impact existing and new lawful permanent residents of the United States.\u00a0 The longstanding Public Charge rule has existed for more than 100 years, and was intended to demonstrate that non\u2013U.S. citizens who are seeking to enter the U.S. or to obtain lawful permanent resident (LPR) status are not likely\u00a0in the future\u00a0<\/em>to be primarily dependent on government assistance.\u00a0 To date, cash assistance and long-term institutional care have been the services considered to negatively impact an individual\u2019s immigration status.<\/p>\n

The proposed change targets millions of legal U.S. residents who have dreams of citizenship, many of whom have been living and working legally \u2013 and paying taxes \u2013 in the United States for many years, as well as their children, who are U.S. citizens.\u00a0 The people who will be affected by the proposed change are receiving benefits they are legally entitled to, critical benefits such as SNAP (food stamps), CHIP (Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program) and LIHEAP (utility assistance).\u00a0 Far from demonstrating \u201cprimary dependency,\u201d these services are in extremely common use by working families who need a little (often temporary) help with a specific need.<\/p>\n

Yet the new rule would make accessing these benefits grounds for denying continued legal residency, or the seeking of citizenship.\u00a0 In the short term, the rule will mean that individuals who need a little help to rise up will forego that help to avoid damaging their long-term prospects in the U.S.\u00a0 That means that children will go without health coverage and immunizations.\u00a0 Adults working multiple jobs will go hungry.\u00a0 Family apartments will remain unheated in the winter, because people are afraid to apply for LIHEAP.<\/p>\n

In the long term, our entire community will suffer when children fall ill and hard-working adults suffer from malnutrition and deprivation because they are too afraid to access the benefits to which they are legally entitled.\u00a0 This short-sighted and vindictive law must be shouted down by our citizens who have compassion for their neighbors and a stake in this country\u2019s long-term success.<\/p>\n

I strongly encourage Americans who find this policy unacceptable to submit a comment to the INS during the public comment period, which ends December 10.\u00a0 Visit https:\/\/www.regulations.gov\/document?D=USCIS-2010-0012-0001<\/a> and hit the \u201cComment Now\u201d button to make your voice heard!<\/p>\n

Ronan W. Gannon\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Board President of La Comunidad Hispana<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To The Editor This month, there has been a new policy proposed from the White House, laying out potential revisions to the existing Public Charge law to impact existing and new lawful permanent residents of the United States.\u00a0 The longstanding Public Charge rule has existed for more than 100 years, and was intended to demonstrate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11020,5263,5050,11019],"class_list":["post-27389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-citizenship","tag-discrimination","tag-immigration","tag-rule-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27390,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27389\/revisions\/27390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}