U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is restoring a broader public charge rule that lets immigration officers consider use of Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance in green card cases. The change would return USCIS officers to case-by-case reviews that had been narrowed under a 2022 Biden-era regulation.
Joseph B. Edlow said USCIS is reaffirming self-reliance and restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves. The policy shift could affect roughly 588,000 adjustment-of-status applicants each year and may push some immigrant households to avoid benefits they qualify for.
Joseph B. Edlow and USCIS
Edlow, the USCIS director, said the federal government “is reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources and ending policies that encouraged dependency on the backs of hard-working American taxpayers,” and that “Under President Trump, USCIS is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves.”
The Department of Homeland Security is poised to rescind the 2022 regulation that limited what officers could weigh under the public charge test. The broader standard restores discretion USCIS used during the first Trump administration, when officers could look at age, health, family status, assets, financial resources, education, skills and whether an applicant had received means-tested taxpayer-funded benefits.
Public Charge Rule and Benefits
The rule applies to noncitizens inside the United States who are seeking to adjust to lawful permanent residence, and to noncitizens seeking admission as immigrants or nonimmigrants unless Congress has exempted them. The public charge test historically exempts some refugees, asylees and certain humanitarian categories, including Special Immigrant Juveniles, certain trafficking and crime victims, and Violence Against Women Act self-petitioners.
The 2022 Biden-era rule had limited the benefits DHS could consider mainly to cash welfare payments intended to cover basic living expenses and to long-term institutional care paid for by the federal government. The new final rule broadens that review again, allowing officers to consider whether applicants have used taxpayer-funded benefits including Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance.
November 2025 DHS Estimate
In its November 2025 proposal, DHS estimated that about 588,000 adjustment-of-status applicants each year would be subject to public-charge review. In the same proposal, DHS said the policy change could create a chilling effect that would lead about 950,000 people in immigrant households to disenroll from or forgo public benefits they legally qualify for.
For applicants, the practical change is not a single cutoff. It is a wider screen: officers can now weigh a broader mix of personal factors and benefit use together, which makes the review more individualized and less tied to one category of assistance. The final rule is expected to be finalized by DHS, and USCIS will decide how that expanded discretion is applied in individual cases.
