On December 23, 2022, a new rule, “Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility, “ will go into effect, impacting immigration qualifications for those seeking to cross the United States border. In order for a noncitizen’s application for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status to be approved, the applicant must show they will not become a public charge unless otherwise exempted by the government. In essence, a public charge is someone who relies on government resources such as welfare, housing assistance, and other forms of public assistance. While this requirement isn’t new, the process of determining whether an applicant is likely to become a public charge has had its challenges. The new Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility rule hopes to clear this up and make the pathway to citizenship more defined.
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for managing this rule. The new final version will implement a version that has greater clarity for officers as well as applicants and their families and will result in more fair and consistent decisions.
Some of the sections of the previous 2019 rule that have been omitted from the new rule include:
(1) a complicated and unnecessarily broad definition of “public charge”;
(2) mandatory consideration of past, current, and future receipt of certain supplemental public benefits, notwithstanding that most noncitizens subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility would not have been eligible for such benefits at the time of application (and notwithstanding the potential collateral effects of this policy on U.S. citizen children in mixed-status households and noncitizens who are not subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility);
(3) burdensome and, in some instances, duplicative information collection requirements;
(4) designation of certain factors or sets of factual circumstances as “heavily weighted”; and
(5) imposition of a “public benefit condition” for extension of stay and change of status, notwithstanding that the nonimmigrant population to whom this condition applied is largely ineligible for such benefits.
How does the new Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility Rule evaluate “public charge?”
Instead, the new rule reverts back to a similar standard previously used by the United States government that considered a noncitizen to be “likely at any time to become a public charge” by evaluating if they are likely to become dependent on the government for subsistence based on either their receipt of public cash assistance for income maintenance or needing long-term institutionalization at government expense. One of the most significant clarifications sets the standard for “dependent on the government for subsistence” (or, “primarily dependent”) to mean significant reliance and will not include temporary or supplementary forms of assistance.
As part of the new process, applicants will need to complete an updated form I-485, Application to Register for Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. The current 7/15/2022 edition will not be accepted after 12/23/2022. All applications received after 12/23/2022 must be submitted using the 12/23/2022 I-485 form.
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