Abstract

Excerpted From: Ana Pottratz Acosta, An Examination of Public Benefit Enrollment Data in Minnesota Immigrant Households as Evidence of Public Charge Chilling Effect, 43 Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality 73 (Spring, 2025) (330 Footnotes) (Full Document)

A hallmark of the first Trump Administration was its pervasive attacks against immigrant communities. While President Trump often touts his efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement to secure the southern border, other policies aimed at limiting legal immigration to the U.S. through administrative action had a far greater impact on U.S. immigration policy during his first term. One such action, the promulgation of regulations setting forth more subjective standards to determine if an immigrant was subject to the public charge grounds of inadmissibility, led to the denial of many family-based permanent residence applications that were otherwise approvable under existing law.

In addition to increased denials of permanent residence applications under this new standard for public charge, there was significant anecdotal evidence the public charge regulations, together with earlier leaked drafts, caused a chilling effect within immigrant communities. Specifically, many immigrant and mixed status families opted to forego public benefits they were otherwise entitled to receive on behalf of themselves or eligible U.S. Citizen children due to fear it would cause them to be ineligible for future immigration benefits or result in deportation.

In this Article, the Author will examine means-tested benefit enrollment data for Minnesota immigrant households to see if this data supports existence of a chilling effect through decreased immigrant household enrollment in these programs following publication of the public charge regulations. Additionally, while several previous studies using survey data support the existence of a public charge chilling effect, this Article will build on this previous work by analyzing primary enrollment data provided directly by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (MN-DHS), the agency administering these programs.

Part I of this Article will define the public charge ground of inadmissibility under section 212(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and will provide a history of the public charge ground of inadmissibility and enforcement of the public charge statute prior to 2016.

Part II of this Article will summarize the rollout of the public charge regulations by the first Trump Administration. This Part will include discussion of leaked draft executive orders and proposed regulations in 2017 and 2018, changes to the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) guidance on public charge in early 2018, and the proposed and final public charge regulations in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Part II will also provide a summary of litigation challenging the final public charge regulations in 2019, including the February 2020 U.S. Supreme Court Order lifting a lower court preliminary injunction and allowing the final regulation to go into effect.

Part III of this Article will discuss the chilling effect of the public charge regulations within immigrant communities, both in terms of contemporaneous anecdotal reports and recent studies, using survey data, to determine impact of the public charge rule on immigrant receipt of means-tested benefits. Part III will also discuss the resulting harm to immigrant households when families forgo means-tested public benefits, such as food insecurity and poor health outcomes due to lack of medical coverage.

Part IV of the Article will then examine enrollment data from 2013 to 2021 for federal means-tested programs in Minnesota, provided directly by MN-DHS, to determine if there were reductions in enrollment following publication of leaked drafts and the proposed and final public charge regulations in the Federal Register. This examination will include an analysis of immigrant household enrollment data for the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), the Minnesota state-based family cash assistance program funded by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) federal block grant funds, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Finally, Part V will provide recommendations to states on how to combat fear within immigrant communities and encourage eligible immigrant families to enroll in means-tested benefit programs.

[. . .]

As previously discussed, analysis of MN-DHS public benefit enrollment data for Minnesota immigrant households from 2013 to 2021 demonstrates statistically significant reductions in benefit enrollment for certain immigrant households, further corroborating existence of a public charge chilling effect. This chilling effect was particularly evident in the Mixed Status-Ineligible and Foreign-Born U.S. Citizen immigrant household categories, which saw statistically significant declines in benefit enrollment between 2017 and 2019. Even more troubling, data from 2021 shows that public benefit enrollment has continued to decrease in both of these household categories after rescission of the 2019 DHS Public Charge Regulations by the Biden Administration in March 2021. This continuing decline in enrollment in 2021 points to a continuing chilling effect due to ongoing concerns related to public charge, despite reversal of this policy by President Biden. This chilling effect may be exacerbated further with the start of President Trump's second term in January 2025 and potential regulatory changes to the public charge ground of inadmissibility under the incoming Trump administration.

Because this data, along with other recent studies, demonstrates the existence of an ongoing reluctance by immigrant households to utilize public benefits likely to worsen under a second Trump administration, state and local government officials should allocate additional resources to reverse the public charge chilling effect. These efforts should include community education initiatives to combat misinformation within immigrant communities around public charge and additional resources at the city, state, and county level to help immigrant households enroll in benefit programs. Evidence of the success of such efforts can be seen in the absence of a chilling effect in the Mixed Status-All Eligible household category, which likely includes refugees who benefited from supportive integration services through a Voluntary Agency upon arrival. An increase in similar integration services for other immigrant household categories would likely limit further declines in public benefit enrollment due to fear around public charge.

Additionally, state and local governments should also invest resources in universal programs to address food insecurity and other negative collateral consequences that occur when immigrant households forgo public benefits on account of public charge. An example of such a program is the universal free school meals program, passed by the Minnesota legislature in 2023 and signed into law by Governor Tim Walz. Such programs address food insecurity and other structural barriers caused by poverty while also eliminating the stigma associated with government programs and fears about negative consequences, such as public charge inadmissibility, by making this assistance universal versus need-based.

Ana Pottratz Acosta is a Professor of Law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law where she teaches the Health Law Clinic, Immigration Law, and Professional Responsibility.