Recent immigrant mass detentions and deportations, including the practice of family separation and detention of children, have been controversial enough. Now, a new interpretation of the public charge rule, based on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, will enact changes that some states claim target poor immigrants of color.

Immigration policy already makes it very prohibitive to become a U.S. citizen without additional rules. Since 2016, the citizenship application wait was an average of 4 to 6 months. Now, it takes up to an average of 10 months to a year.

In major cities, like Atlanta; Washington, D.C; and New York City it can take up to two years. The old public charge rule is being enforced to make it more difficult to achieve legal residency, and states are already challenging this mass green card denial in street protests and lawsuits.

Public charge has been used in immigration law since 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act targeted: “...convicts, lunatics, idiots, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.” Given this wording, one can imagine how wide the net is here.

Predictably, it was used then to discriminate against single mothers and working-class people.

It is now being employed to further the Trump administration’s immigration policy goals, which have been controversial since Trump announced he would build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, public charge has been applied in two ways: “(1) when a person applies to enter the U.S. or (2) when a person applies to adjust immigration status to become a lawful permanent resident (to get a green card). You apply for a visa or green card by submitting information on a form. Using the information from that form and from the interview that follows, the government decides if you are likely to become a public charge.”

With this expansion, public charge includes any noncitizen resident/worker who seeks permanent legal citizenship and may rely on Medicaid, housing, vouchers, and food stamps.

But it goes even further. The law also includes noncitizen residents who have ever used the programs. Will they go into old government records to search for people who once used these programs as an excuse to deny permanent citizenship?

In June 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which handles children’s detention, started sharing fingerprint submissions, “background checks, proofs of income and home visits” directly with Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE).

Does the public charge rule open up grounds for HHS to collaborate more directly with ICE in a broader capacity? Is the agency tasked with overseeing essential health services poised to become an agency along the lines of ICE or the Department of Homeland Security?

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that: “The rule will likely increase confusion and fear broadly across immigrant families about using public programs for themselves and their children, regardless of whether they are directly affected by the changes.”

There are anywhere from 11 to 22 million noncitizen residents in the U.S. Many may experience poverty due to financial hardships in their native countries (which is frequently the reason they leave in the first place).

They also have a difficult time getting housing and jobs because they cannot use proper documentation. There’s even the health toll of migration itself — especially for people crossing the weaponized U.S. border from Mexico and Central and South America. This is not to mention the additional mental health stressors resulting from the “confusion and fear” facilitated by the HHS and other noncombat-style government agencies.

The new rule considers noncash benefits and uses factors such as “age, health, household size, income, assets, debts and education and skill levels” to determine citizenship eligibility. These criteria add an additional speculative dimension to the rule, leaving it open to charges of profiling and wild bias.

California, Maine, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and D.C. are seeking an injunction to halt the rule, stating that the rule unfairly targets: “marginalized populations, such as children, students, individuals with disabilities, older adults, and low-wage working families.”