New York, NY - The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) condemns the finalized changes to the public charge rule, announced today by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). These changes disproportionately punish immigrant families who are on a pathway to a greencard, and who are eligible for and obtain vital public health care coverage, food assistance, and housing assistance.

CACF, along with many of our member organizations, submitted comments to DHS earlier this year to oppose the rule, with 23,000 comments (out of 250,000 in total) from APA advocates nation-wide. Despite the strong opposition, the finalized rule discourages families that are eligible for health insurance programs like Medicaid from using them thereby threatening the well-being, health and safety of all immigrants, including Asian Pacific American (APA) immigrant children and families.

In New York City, half of all children under the age of six have an immigrant parent, and almost 25% of all children in immigrant families are APAs. These children live in hardworking homes, where many struggle to make ends meet. This inhumane rule can serve to exacerbate the fears in our communities that isolate immigrant families and prevent them from accessing needed health and other services.

Vanessa Leung, Co-Executive Director, states: “As a lead agency of an APA Patient Navigator program working with 10 community organizations across NYC providing health insurance enrollment services to increase access to health care for New Yorkers, CACF has already seen the threat of public charge discouraging thousands of APA families away from applying for health care coverage for which they are eligible. This newly finalized rule will only worsen conditions for APA New Yorkers.”

“This rule is yet another attack on immigrant APA families. Our immigrant APA families and their children have suffered enough. These deplorable tactics are designed to instill fear, disrupt families, and create barriers that deprives those in need of basic necessities. This rule will cause a great deal of harm to our communities,” states Anita Gundanna, Co-Executive Director.

CACF will continue to fight against this and other hurtful policies, ensure protections at the City and State levels to APA immigrant families, and work with our member organizations to help ensure access to quality and affordable health care for APA New Yorkers.

If litigation does not prevent the rule from taking effect, this policy will become effective in 60 days on October 15th, 2019. For more information and resources on this ruling, please CLICK HERE.