Administration is now trying to curtail legal immigration under the pretext of preventing America from becoming a welfare magnet

The ‘Public-Charge’ Ploy: A new rule looks like another effort to limit legal immigration. WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"But there’s little evidence that immigrants are free-riding, and the DHS rule cedes too much discretion to bureaucrats over immigration decisions.

Start with DHS’s declaration that it will weigh the “totality of the alien’s circumstances” and that “no single factor alone, including the receipt of public benefits, is outcome determinative.” So immigration officers will apply the kind of holistic admission reviews that colleges now use—except adversity will be considered a negative.

Anyone who has been “approved to receive one or more public benefits for more than 12 months within any 36-month period” would receive an automatic negative strike. But most immigrants don’t qualify for most public benefits until they have lived in the country for at least five years. Thus DHS is directing immigration officers in the 837-page rule to project the likelihood that immigrants might someday become a “public charge” based on arbitrary levels of income, employment, education and English proficiency.

Earning more than 250% of the federal poverty line ($30,350 for an individual) would be a “heavily weighted positive factor,” for example. Yet the U.S. has about four million foreign-born workers with less than a high-school diploma who earn on average $27,820 per year. They hold vital jobs across the economy that there aren’t enough citizens to fill.

Current earnings also don’t predict income growth or government dependency. According to the National Foundation for American Policy, incomes of immigrants ages 26 to 40 after a mere four years in the U.S. rose to 300% from 239% of the poverty line—nearly the average of native-born counterparts."