To Enforce Public Charge Law, Report Welfare Enrollment
Key Findings
- Federal law allows denial of visas and green cards to individuals likely to become public charges.
- Households with non-citizens are more likely to use welfare programs than citizen-only households.
- Despite this, public charge law is uncommonly used as grounds for inadmissibility and deportability.
- The Trump administration reversed a Biden administration rule that narrowed the scope of public charge law.
- States should report welfare-receiving non-citizens to help with public charge enforcement.
Background
For nearly 150 years, federal law has sought to prevent immigrants from burdening taxpayers through the use of welfare programs.1 The Immigration Act of 1882 blocked the entry of persons likely to become a public charge.2 A century later, Congress again made clear that aliens should not depend on public resources to meet their needs with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.3
Federal law provides that a person who is likely at any time to become a “public charge”—e.g., dependent on government benefits—may be deemed inadmissible.4 Within five years of entry, aliens may also be deported for becoming a public charge.5 It is also the policy of the country that public benefits should not incentivize immigration.6
Public charge determinations apply to most immigrants outside of refugee and other humanitarian circumstances.7 Classes of aliens covered generally include family-based or employment-based visas, student visas, and lawful permanent residents.8 Public charge grounds of inadmissibility apply at the initial application and adjustments of status.9
However, for much of the history of public charge status, the term was left undefined.10 Then, at the end of the Clinton administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service released field guidance that took an extremely narrow view of public charge.11 The guidance limited public charge determinations to those likely to receive cash assistance or long-term institutionalization.12
The first Trump administration brought public charge rules more in line with congressional intent by broadening which welfare programs could be considered when making public charge determinations.13 But the Biden administration reversed this commonsense rule, taking the public charge definition back to the Clinton administration’s field guidance.14 This narrow definition allows more than 90 percent of non-citizen households on welfare to escape public charge determinations.15
The second Trump administration has now finalized a new public charge rule, restoring sanity and honoring congressional intent.16 The new rule allows officers to consider an alien’s use of any means-tested benefit when making public charge determinations.17
This rule is an important step at the federal level since, contrary to the will of Congress, non-citizen households use welfare programs at a greater rate than citizen-only households.
Non-citizen households receive welfare at high rates
In 2025, federal taxpayers paid for more than $1.3 trillion in welfare benefits.18 Driving these costs are programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and housing that have been afflicted by huge spending increases.
Federal spending on Medicaid has skyrocketed from $117 billion in 2000 to $623 billion in 2024.19 Food stamp spending has climbed from $17 billion in 2000 to $103 billion in 2025.20 Finally, in the past decade alone, federal housing assistance costs have increased by 53 percent.21
Non-citizens have contributed disproportionately to the growth in these welfare programs. Households with non-citizens have someone enrolled in Medicaid at nearly twice the rate as citizen-only households.22 These figures also hold true for food assistance programs like food stamps, WIC, and government-subsidized meals.23
More than half of households with non-citizens receive some form of welfare versus one-third of citizen-only households.24 Compounding this issue, nearly two-thirds of these non-citizen households on welfare receive benefits from multiple programs.25
This welfare usage by non-citizens is not what Congress intended, but up to this point little has been done about it.
Public charge law is rarely used as an enforcement mechanism
Despite the prevalent use of welfare programs by non-citizen households, officials rarely invoke public charge law to deny entry or remove immigrants from the country.
Immigrant visas refused on public charge grounds increased during the first Trump administration but have still represented a small percentage of all refusals.26 The last two years of the Obama administration saw a total of fewer than 2,000 immigrant visas refused on public charge grounds.27 Three years later these refusals still represented only one in 20 of all visa refusals—all while recent data shows more than 50 percent of non-citizen households relying on some form of public support.28-29
Likewise, over a five-year period, there were a total of only 123 deportations based on public charge law determinations.30 This was out of a total of more than 1.2 million total removals.31 In other words, public charge deportations represented just one in 10,000 removals.
This high use of welfare by non-citizen households and minimal enforcement of public charge law is in stark contrast to the longstanding national policy of ensuring that new immigrants do not become a burden on taxpayers.
The Biden administration only made this problem worse by limiting public charge grounds of inadmissibility to the receipt of cash welfare and institutionalization.32 Thankfully, the Trump administration has acted to correct this issue.
The Trump administration acted to strengthen public charge law
The Trump administration has recently taken two separate actions to help with public charge enforcement.
The administration finalized a new rule on the public charge ground of inadmissibility.33 The rule rescinds the Biden administration’s narrow definition of public charge.34 Under the finalized rule, officers will have the discretion to consider any receipt of public benefits when making public charge determinations for inadmissibility.35
The Trump administration will also require immigrants subject to registration and change of address reporting to report any means-tested public benefits they receive.36 This requirement will help with enforcement of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 as well as build the case for deportation on public charge grounds.
However, this requirement will only fall on immigrants when they are reporting a change of address.37 States are the key to helping fill the remaining gap in public charge enforcement.
States are key to filling the public charge enforcement gap
States should report all non-citizens receiving welfare to federal authorities. Doing so will help enforcement of public charge determinations in two ways.
First, it will help in making inadmissibility determinations based on public charge grounds for non-citizens applying for visas or green cards or seeking an adjustment of their status. Establishing that these non-citizens are already receiving welfare will help officers determine how likely they are to become a public charge. This is especially true now that officers have the discretion to consider the receipt of any welfare benefit when making public charge inadmissibility determinations.
Second, for anyone subject to public charge law but not applying for or adjusting their status, states reporting welfare receipt can be a first step to starting the deportation process. With fewer than 25 public charge deportations happening in the average year, officers need to be made aware of when individuals subject to public charge grounds are relying on welfare programs so they can act.38
Reporting non-citizens receiving welfare should be a priority for every state because welfare among non-citizens is an issue that plagues every state. In most states, half or more of non-citizen households receive some form of welfare.39 In some states, three in five or even three in four of these households receive welfare.40
For instance, New York has more than 1.2 million households with non-citizens and 62 percent of them collect some form of welfare.41 In Kentucky, 75 percent of non-citizen households are supported by taxpayer dollars through welfare.42
To help with public charge enforcement, states should report these welfare-receiving non-citizens to federal authorities.
The Bottom Line:
To ensure that welfare programs are only available to intended recipients, states should report non-citizens receiving welfare to federal authorities.
Despite congressional efforts to protect taxpayers from supporting immigrants through welfare, non-citizen households join the public dole at much higher rates than citizen-only households.43 This has been allowed because public charge law is rarely enforced.
The Trump administration has acted to give immigration officers the tools and discretion they need to help ensure that immigrants do not become reliant on taxpayer-funded welfare programs.
Now, states are the key to ensuring that public charge enforcement matches the intent of the law. Reporting non-citizens who receive welfare to federal authorities gives them the information they need to make public charge determinations.
Appendix: Non-Citizen Households Use Welfare at High Rates
