Immigrant rights advocates across the country including CAA applauded a major victory on “public charge” as courts blocked the implementation of new rules proposed by Trump. With injunctions issued by federal judges in New York, Washington, California, and Maryland, CAA and the several hundred community members we organized to criticize the proposed rules during public comment, took a moment to celebrate. CAA continues to engage with Chinese ethnic media and conduct workshops to educate, mobilize, and engage immigrant families on the future of the policy.
Once public comment was opened, CAA organized an advocacy and public awareness campaign and gathered over 2000 comments from our English and Chinese speaking community disavowing the policy change. Our immigrant rights team coordinated translations for Chinese comments. We have also integrated “public charge” into our community outreach and workshops to make sure our immigrant communities fully understand the policy and have resources to respond if it does affect them.
CAA sent out a press release as soon as “public charge” rules dropped to our media contacts and led efforts to ensure that the media provided correct information to immigrant communities. While a majority of immigrant families would not be affected by public charge rules change, fear and confusion of rumors of public charge and other perceived harsh immigration enforcement penalties have resulted in significant dis-enrollments of public services such as Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP) and housing vouchers (Section 8). We organized and hosted two separate media briefings, one paneled by city officials and another with community leaders. You can read more about them here and here respectively.
CAA is committed to preserving and lifting up the rights of all immigrants. Our immigrant rights program has advocated against “public charge” while coordinating community outreach and workshops to make sure our immigrant communities understand the policy and have resources to respond if it does affect them. Community members who are interested in learning more are encouraged to contact CAA’s Immigrant Rights program at 415.761.3222 for general inquiry and legal referrals regarding how the public charge final rule might affect them.