Crackdown on immigrants who use public benefits takes effect – By Anita Snow (Associated Press) / Feb 24 2020
Advocates say new guidelines that disqualify more people from green cards if they use government benefits is prompting droves of immigrants to drop government social services
PHOENIX — Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighborhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid.
No more.
“You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,” he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighborhood to show how long the lines got.
But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside.
With new rules taking effect Monday that disqualify more people from green cards if they use government benefits, droves of immigrants, including citizens and legal residents, have dropped social services they or their children may be entitled to out of fear they will be kicked out of the U.S., said Velazquez and other advocates.
“This will bring more poverty, more homeless, more illness,” said Velasquez, a well-known leader among Spanish-speaking immigrants in the Phoenix area.
Advocates around the U.S. gathered Monday to discuss and criticize the policy.
Participants at a New York City roundtable said that in anticipation of the change, neighborhoods with higher immigrant populations had seen enrollment declines in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC. They also urged immigrants to get legal advice on how they may be affected.
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