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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawUS Immigration LawPublic Charge Rule Change May Impact Prospective Immigrant Visas

Public Charge Rule Change May Impact Prospective Immigrant Visas

Transcript of the above video:

At the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Public Charge Grounds of Inadmissibility and how it possibly could impact the immigration process moving forward based on certain proposals that have been made under the current Administration to go ahead and change certain aspects of the law related to that topic.

There was a recent article written by Catherine Camacho for Pacific Daily News. It was published on guampdn.com. The article is entitled, Food Stamps, Section 8 Could Affect Immigration Application Under Proposed Rules. Quoting directly, “The US Department of Homeland Security posted a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the issue of Public Charge as a ground of inadmissibility to the United States. ”The main difference to the proposed rule and present policy guidelines implemented during Bill Clinton's Administration is the definition of welfare benefit. Welfare benefits generally included only cash assistance and institutional for long-term care. The proposed rule is more expansive and will include Medicaid, exclusive of certain emergencies or those provided through schools or disability programs, food stamps, Section 8 rental assistance and federal housing vouchers. Those impacted by the proposed rule will be; those individuals seeking immigrant and non-immigrant visas abroad, individuals seeking admission to the United States on immigrant or non-immigrant visas and individuals seeking to adjust their status in the United States.” And apparently they are also going to have various criteria including health, age, assets, family status, resources and financial status and education skills. I suspect, and those who are interested should really go check out this because there's much more in there, there is much more nuance, but basically my personal opinion is I think this is going to have a substantial impact especially on those immigrants in the United States. As far as those seeking visas abroad, I suspect that the current framework will be tweaked somewhat, in fact I believe it will change with respect to the analysis of possible public charge but that being said I suspect that, well I don't know, the rule change could have rather drastic implications so I shouldn't go too far out on a limb but I do suspect that overall the framework will remain the same for those who are analyzing, for the officers that have to go ahead and analyze the financial situation of an American citizen or permanent resident wishing to bring a fiancée or spouse into the United States.

So while it is hard for me to say right now what exactly is going to happen, I don't think that the sky is falling in the sense that they are going to totally up end the way in which they dealt with this in the past, at least this issue but I do think that they are, it is very possible maybe as a result of this rule change, certain Financial criteria may increase. If that happens, that could have a tremendous impact on those who are seeking to bring in a prospective immigrant, spouse or fiancée, to the United States. It should also be noted that although this has yet to be implemented, I think it is probably going to be implemented if at all in the year 2019. I think this is going to happen just based on prior rule making sort of timelines where you go ahead and see there is a 60-day period for people to make comments and then they go ahead and come out with the proposed rule and based on sort of the statutory framework for promulgation of the rule, usually you are looking at, I think it is safe to assume probably a year from the filming of this video which is October, 2018 we will probably see this rule implemented.

We will go ahead and do another video on this channel to update those watching on this topic but in the meantime, the rules remain the same and we may do a video in the meantime to go ahead and provide some further clarification as the proposed rule comes out.