Get Head Start For Your American Baby And Get Deported! Trump Admin's Newest Sick, Evil Shit

Screw you, huddled masses. And your stupid anchor babies, too.

The Trump administration may be full of chaos and morons, but just as the ruling Bubba Class in the Jim Crow South found endless ways to dehumanize and humiliate black people, to remind them of their lesser status, the Trump folks are insanely good at one thing: thinking up ways to make life difficult for immigrants. Not just the bad evil illegals -- all of whom are "criminal," no matter what -- but also legal immigrants, who may turn on us at any moment and crime us to death, because they're not Norwegian. Trump and Co. have been very clear that they don't just want to deport undocumented immigrants, they want to slash legal immigration as well -- that's a Steve Bannon/Stephen Miller priority, to save Western Civilization from dangerous swarthy scum.

So it should come as no surprise -- and yet it still does -- that the administration has proposed new rules that would penalize legal immigrants if, say, they enroll their US-born children -- who sneakily got citizenship they don't deserve by being born here -- in Head Start, or in CHIP. The idea is that the administration wants to crack down on immigrants who are taking YOUR HARD-EARNED MONEY to improve their children's health or education. This is one evil goddamned proposal. 

Vox's Dara Lind explainerers:  

The rule wouldn’t make it illegal for immigrants to use public services that are open to everyone regardless of immigration status, or that are available to their US-born children. But it would make it possible for the government to deny their applications for a new type of visa, or a green card, if they’d used those services. In other words, it could force them to choose between taking advantage of available social services, and their family’s future ability to stay in the United States permanently.

Immigration law gives the federal government the ability to deny a green card or restrict visa extensions if they're labeled a "public charge" -- a noncitizen who is considered likely to be a drain on the public purse, because after all, welfare is only for US Americans, and not even them, really, because nobody has an excuse to be poor in the Greatest Country On Earth. Currently that "public charge" status can only be applied to people who have made use of cash assistance, like Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The proposed rule would vastly expand the federal, state, and local programs that could mark immigrants as "public charges," even if the benefits were used by their children who are citizens. For instance, all of these:

• some “educational benefits,” including use of Head Start for children

• Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

• use of any subsidies, or purchase of subsidized insurance, under the Affordable Care Act

• food stamps

• Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) assistance

• Housing benefits, like Section 8

• Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)

• transit vouchers

That's pretty goddamn draconian, considering that ACA subsidies are available to people making up to 250% of the federal poverty rate. Most people don't usually think of that as "welfare," but of course these bastards do. Lind explains how this would be used against those terrible immigrants who have the bad judgment not to be solidly upper-middle-class:

Using any of these for more than six months in the last two years (before applying for a different visa or a green card) would be considered a “heavily weighted” strike against the immigrant. (That strike could be canceled out if an immigrant was making more than 250 percent of the federal poverty level when applying for the new visa or green card — which, for a family of 4 in 2017, was $60,750.)

If this abomination is enacted, the new rules would only apply against those who use the named services after the rule goes into effect, so anyone whose kid is currently sucking off the Head Start teat and getting preschool services (which even American children should be ashamed of) wouldn't have to worry. Presumably, immigrant parents of citizen children would get some advanced warning to keep their sick kids away from healthcare before that could interfere with mom or dad applying for a green card.

Oh, but if you have some connections and can prove your preschooler won't bankrupt America, you can buy your way out of that "public charge" notation in your permanent record. For a price:

Immigrants can get out of being considered a “public charge” if they have someone willing to sign an “affidavit of support” promising to support them at 125 percent of the federal poverty level. But the government doesn’t have to agree to admit someone, or give them a green card, based on that affidavit.

The draft would allow an immigrant one other way to get out of a “public charge” bar: paying at least $10,000 in bond. But the Department of Homeland Security would have the power to decide whether to allow an immigrant to post bond. And if the immigrant used any public benefits in the five years after posting the bond, they’d forfeit the whole $10,000.

These means tests wouldn't apply to refugees or to people granted political asylum, probably because of some stupid UN treaty that stole American sovereignty. But they're a small (and diminishing) number of the green card applicants who would be affected by the new rule, because the home of the Brave is simply terrified of refugees.

The rules, which would apply to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security, haven't yet been drafted in final form or formally submitted for adoption; once they are, probably sometime in March, they'll be subject to the normal federal rule-making process, which will be open for public comment. We'll make damn sure to let you know when that happens and where to send your polite distillations of rage.

On the bright side, it doesn't look like the administration has yet figured out a way to revoke the 14th Amendment, strip poor Americans of citizenship, and deport them. We're sure there's a study group on that.

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[ Vox / DHS Proposed Rule ]