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US Visas: Trump Public Charge Rule Effectively Rescinded

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing US Immigration. Specifically we are discussing the Trump Public Charge rule. For those who are unaware, if you haven't been keeping up with this channel, the Public Charge Rule is basically the rules that pertain to one's financial ability to support an immigrant. In the context of this channel, we are mostly talking about this in the context of a K-1 Visa, or fiancées of US citizens or for Immigrant Spouse Visas for US citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents. Basically, the Public Charge rule prior to Trump enacting a new well enacting is the wrong word because it was done essentially through administrative rule making, but basically before the Trump Administration got ahold of things, the Public Charge Rule basically stipulated that one had to show income over 125% of the federal poverty guidelines associated with a household size which pertain to that given family. Then Trump changed things up. Basically the income requirements went a lot higher and they added a bunch of forms and things including the DS-5540 and essentially it tacked on a lot of nettlesome documentation and analysis for those looking to go into the United States. 

We didn't so much see this in a Consular processing context because by the time it was coming to the foreground, COVID hit and then basically gummed up that works for almost a year and we just didn't hardly see anything process out. So the Biden Administration is apparently for lack of a better term, rescinding this rule. Quoting directly from a recent statement, this is from US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Public Affairs, titled: DHS Secretary Statement on the 2019 Public Charge Rule. I thought this particular excerpt pretty much summed it up. "Today, DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced that the Government will no longer defend the 2019 Public Charge Rule as doing so is neither in the public interest nor an efficient use of limited government resources. The 2019 Public Charge Rule was not in keeping with our nation's values." Essentially we have gone into this. There were injunctions filed against this and the former Administration was fighting it out in the Courts. This Administration has said that that is not a priority and it looks like we are for lack of a better term snapping back or reverting back to the pre-Trump Public Charge Rule.

Now, these things always have especially in Consular processing where you are dealing with Visa applications abroad, these things always have more nuance to them than they first appear so exactly how this is going to play out from a practical sense, forms that were added although some of them have been just totally ignored, DOS did that a while ago, and I am doing another video on that contemporaneously with this one. Long story short, there could still be practical implications to the things that the last Administration did and as noted by other YouTubers especially some other Immigration lawyers out there who do some really good YouTube stuff and are far more watched than I to be frank, as they have pointed out there are a lot of folks that were on board with the prior policies of the prior Administration that are for lack of a better term well entrenched in the bureaucracy and may be trying to keep the spirit of those rules going. It is a bit of a speculation. My personal opinion is, yeah the ship is turning around for lack of a better term but it takes a while; you can't just stop on a dime. It has to reorient and it is going to take some months before we really see concrete changes. But we have already seen a lot of change. As I have noted in other videos on this channel NVC is now sending cases to the Embassy here so obviously we are processing through K-1s, we are processing through K-3s, Immigrant Spouse Visas. Things have changed a lot in the last roughly two and a half months. So I presume things will change further as this Administration sallies forward.