Public charge is racist and anti-poor. The Supreme Court just made it legal.
Carlos Aguilar is Chief Content Director at ChangeLawyers℠. He immigrated to California at the age of 4.
This week, the five conservative judges on the Supreme Court allowed the Trump Administration’s “public charge” rule to go into effect. This rule creates a wealth test to determine who is worthy of living in America. Permanent residency can now be denied to any and all immigrants who use government benefits for “basic needs such as food and housing”. This includes anyone who ever received Medicaid, Medicare, or SNAP (food stamps) benefits.
This rule is so broad, that nearly 70% of the people who were granted green cards in the past five years would now be considered ineligible.
In fact, this rule would have killed my family’s future in America.
When we first immigrated to California, my family used public benefits to secure our future. Today, my parents are small business owners, my sister and I are college graduates, and I’m the Chief Content Director at ChangeLawyers, a public foundation. The Supreme Court’s decision makes our lives — and our success — in America that much more improbable.
And we’re not alone. Close to 90% of the young people who receive ChangeLawyers scholarships are either immigrants or first-generation students. After law school, many of them become business owners, law firm partners, and judges. They are community activists; they run for office; they make and implement laws. These young people are, in every sense of the phrase, the American dream. In the words of U.S. District Judge George Daniels, who blocked the rule in October 2019, public charge is “repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success.”
So where do we go from here?
I believe we need our people — people who look like us, who talk like us, who have our lived experience — to assume positions of power and influence. We need our people in all federal and district courts. We need our people on the Supreme Court.
And we need all of this to happen now. Over 90% of Trump-nominated judges have been white and over 70% of all federal judges across the country are white. In California, where over 60% of us are people of color, over 70% of lawyers are white.
Clearly, the status quo is uninterested in extending human dignity, safety, and respect to immigrants, POC, and poor communities. Clearly, the status quo threatens our ability to live our lives and secure our future. Which is why I believe that the fight for our future starts with us — all of us — taking on the status quo and taking back power.
