Stop Trump’s Cruel Attack on Immigrant Families

Comments to Protect Immigrant Families

• My name is Cindy Maguire. I am the descendent of immigrants from both sides of my family. From Ireland and the United Kingdom. My husband is an immigrant from South Africa and now an American citizen.

  I strongly oppose the Public Charge rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. I am deeply offended by this rule that would judge me or any immigrant by our wealth, status, education, and whether we have asked for public assistance. This cannot be, in the United States of America.

  I have researched my family history and am familiar with the stories of their travels to the US and their lives as immigrants to this country. My family is not wealthy nor were their early ancestors. On my father’s side, the first two generations of men worked in taverns. My great-grandfather was a medic in WWI. He came home from that war, addicted to morphine, his lungs damaged by mustard gas. He died at 54. It’s only during my generation – I am 56 – that the offspring of these ancestors went on to pursue higher education. While the earlier generations did not go to college and in some cases, drew upon public assistance, we have always paid taxes and participated in growing and supporting community. Today our family includes professors, Navy pilots, mothers, fathers, artists, musicians, doctors, engineers, executives, private business owners, stockbrokers and teachers. Our extended family identifies as Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green and Independent. We’re a motley crew! And we all care for one another.

  As a former public K-12 teacher and now university professor, I also work with first and second generation students. One former high school student came to the US as an infant, from Mexico. Her family drew upon public assistance with food stamps when she and her siblings were young. This student is now in her 30’s, a US citizen and is a medical doctor in the US Army. One brother, now also a US citizen, is a policeman in the Los Angeles Police Force. This rule, if it were in effect, would prevent her and her brother from becoming citizens.

  The history of immigrants is filled with stories of personal, community and economic success. Any K-12 teacher will be able to articulate the difference in motivation and effort when it comes to new immigrants vs citizen students in this country. Hands down, every immigrant student I taught in the Los Angeles was measurably more hard working and engaged that my students who were US citizens. A sad truth

  The America I feel a part of welcomes immigrants. I am an immigrant. My family is made up of immigrants. I am a proud American with an immigrant family history.

  I strongly disagree with the public charge rule and ask you to not move forward with the public charge rule. In its most basic understanding, it will tear away at our nation’s economic future.

  Thank you for your consideration and allowing immigrant families and children to be successful in our country.

  – Cindy Maguire

• I strongly oppose the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed “public charge” rule. The proposed rule will hurt immigrants with disabilities and their families. It’s unfair to people with disabilities and bad for the country.

  The public charge rule is an attack on immigrants with disabilities and their families, among others. It is wrong to punish people for using critical public services. Medicaid is the only federal source for comprehensive community living supports for people with disabilities to work, go to school, and be part of their communities. 

  As a mother I understand, the desire to seek better opportunities for our children, and as an immigrant, the sacrifice that means leaving the security of a familiar environment, for seeking that hope for a better quality of life for our children.
  I have a girl with a birth condition. Why punish my daughter for my decision to come to this country?. Nobody looks for a disability that affects her development, in order to have free assistance services. It is illogical to think that my daughter or someone should be punished for receiving services to improve their development. This is what is intended to be done with this ‘public charge’ rule. Punish the most defenseless, who most need help and maybe it was not their own decision to come or even to be born here.
  I ask the congressmen to oppose this “public charge” rule. In defense of people who as a daughter are not to blame for their condition, and maybe they are not even to blame for being here.

  The fear created by these rules would also extend far beyond any individual who may be subject to the “public charge” test and will cause lasting harm to entire communities. People might not apply for the services they need because they are afraid they won’t be allowed to stay in the country. The rule may also make US citizens with disabilities feel that they are a burden because they use Medicaid. 

  The rule puts people with disabilities at a drastic disadvantage, based on their disability or circumstances that arise directly from it. The rule is unfair and discriminatory. I urge the administration to withdraw this proposed rule.

  – Julia A. Aguilar Elejalde

• My name is Martha, I am 38 year old single mother of 3 US born children and I was also a victim of domestic violence.

  Being a victim of domestic violence, I am highly opposed to the new rule on public charge because it will affect many women who are in the same situation I once was in.

  I needed help to get out of my previous relationship and was afraid to speak up and ask for help but my children gave me the strength I needed to fight for a better life for them.

  No child should have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or if they have a warm bed to sleep in so the assistance I received helped put food on the table and a roof over our heads and I am proud to say that through hard work and commitment, I no longer need public assistance.

  I had very little education so I enrolled in English classes, GED courses and various other classes to help make me become more self-sufficient and I also offer my free time volunteering for the community that helped me so much during a difficult time.

  Victims of domestic violence live in fear on a daily basis and if you take away their chance at any assistance, they will be even more afraid to come forward and ask for help.

  For this reason, I am opposed to this new rule that would prevent domestic violence victims end their cycle of abuse.

  – Martha Carballo

• My name is Pamela Guthman and I am a registered nurse of over 34 years providing care to many people and communities. My ethical and professional responsibility as a nurse is to bring this forth to you as I consider this issue from a humanity perspective, and also from one of concern in regard to assuring the health of all of our populations. Therefore, I am writing to urge the Department of Homeland Security to immediately withdraw the public charge proposed rule as it will increase health inequities that already deeply impact our country.

  By seeking to expand public charge, the administration is directly attacking the health and economic stability of immigrant Black, Latinx, and Asian American and Pacific Islander people, families, and communities. This puts at risk many of our families and communities as we are inciting fear and violence, which is breeding increased levels of death.

  The current administration has instilled a culture of fear in immigrant communities across the country, and the chilling effects of potentially expanding the criteria of public charge will have lasting impacts on the health and safety of our communities. Since media leaks of a public charge expansion in early 2017, health providers have seen an increase in immigrant families unenrolling from critical health and social programs. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that immigrant families are experiencing significant levels of fear and uncertainty in the current political climate and that this fear has a direct impact on the health and well-being of children impacts that are likely to have lifelong consequences. These inequities will prevent our friends, neighbors, and families from reaching their full potential, and prevent our communities from being healthy and vibrant, and from thriving.

  From a rural area, I can personally tell you that we are seeing the rapid dissolution of our communities who have traditionally supported more conservative approaches. However, our rural areas and populations do not support encouragement of unnecessary fear, division of our own friends/families who we work alongside in our factories and farms, and especially where mommies, babies and daddies can not access programs for food and very basic supplies and medications to assure they are healthy. As a nurse, I’ve provided Tylenol for a 2 year old little girl who was sick with the influenza, and whose mommy was distraught with worry. This is humane treatment of a mommy and a young child whose dad was working manual labor to put food on their table. My rural neighbors, friends, and family members (including those who have served in the Air Force), do not support this type of policy at all. Please DO NOT extend the public charge rule as it would directly harm the health and well-being of millions of children and families, and create ripple effects that diminish the public health of our nation, and especially our rural communities who are already rapidly disintegrating. I appreciate your time and consideration.

  – Pamela Guthman

• Families who receive public benefits have been vilified for a long time. Popularized by Ronald Reagan in the 80s, the term welfare queen emerged as a trope describing Black and Brown single moms who keep having babies and refusing to work, subsisting their check from the federal government at the tax-payers expense. This rhetoric continued into the 90s as Bill Clinton championed his welfare reform bill, limiting the amount of time that an individual could receive federal benefits and enforcing stringent work requirements for those enrolled in programs. A lesser known provision of this bill made immigrants who entered the United States after August 1996 ineligible for federal benefits for five years after arriving. Its important to note that many remained eligible for state benefits just not federal ones. And once again, this was for post August 1996 immigrants. Hypothetically, immigrants who were already lawfully present in the United States had nothing to worry about. Understandably, they worried anyway.

  After the passage of welfare reform, eligible immigrant household use of state benefits fell by 35 percent between 1994 and 1997. In 1997, only 14 percent of low-income immigrant households with children participated in state welfare programs. In fact, the welfare reform act was associated with an over 20 percent increase in the number of uninsured low-educated immigrant adults and a 68 percent increase in the number of uninsured children in immigrant households. Despite being eligible for state programs, many immigrants and their families removed themselves from benefits in fear of their participation casting a shadow on future naturalization applications. Mothers and children forwent access to food security and healthcare to protect their ability to remain in the United States lawfully.

  So, where does this lead us now 22 years later?

  There are 23 million immigrants currently residing in the United States, and 60 percent of these immigrants are here lawfully. Additionally, about a quarter of all children in the United States have at least one immigrant parent, and the majority of these children are U.S. citizens themselves. The proposed policy changes to public charge determinations risk pressuring women and families to choose between accessing basic needs and ensuring their good standing with immigration officials. If history repeats itself, women and families will choose the latter disenrolling themselves from programs that help provide shelter, food, and primary care.

  Protect children and families. Reject these changes.

  – Amanda Gomez

• We have clearly lost our way as a nation. As the son of immigrant parents, I bemoan the loss of the American dream. My uneducated, low income grandparents came to this country with nothing but a hope of providing a better life for their children. My grandparents died without materially improving their financial condition but in their place they left children and grandchildren who have benefited from their bravery and sacrifice and graduated from some of the most prestigious universities in the county and have used their opportunity to the fullest. My grandparent’s offspring have become lawyers, teachers, wealth managers, small business owners, etc. who have made a material, positive impact on their communities through ethical commerce, charitable giving and non-profit work.

  You cannot “means test” one’s spirit and desire to better their situation and that of those around them:

  Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
  With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
  Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
  Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
  The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
  “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
  With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

  – Patrick Farley

• My mom married my dad and formally became a US citizen in 1963. She was welcomed with such enthusiasm and love, and in her 30 years as a US citizen, before she passed away, her contributions to American society were legendary. Trained as a nurse, she was the go-to person in the neighborhood to whom parents brought their sick or injured kids. She volunteered on many school trips as the resident nurse. She, together with my father, adopted and raised an orphaned family of 9 who, I might add, went on to be extremely successful members of society.

  My mom was an exceedingly loving, compassionate person, and a healthy, skilled, competent individual. But if someone who’s perceptions were clouded by implicit bias saw her skin color, they might fight to keep her from becoming a citizen. What a tragedy! what a denial of American values that has made us a world leader of human rights around the world!

  And I contend, it was the difficult circumstances in her life that made her into such a compassionate person: she understood through her own experience the suffering of others and worked tirelessly to lessen it. If she were a highly educated person of privilege, this may not have been the case.

  I implore you to reconsider this “public charge” regulation being considered. There is no higher value than to be a country that respects and recognizes the humanity of every human being. It is that very respect itself that transforms individuals into being the best citizen they can possibly be!

  – Anna Fisher