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Immigration Law, Public Health, and the Future of Public Charge Policymaking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2022

C. Joseph Ross Daval
C. Joseph Ross Daval*
Affiliation:
BRIGHAM AND WOMEN’S HOSPITAL AND HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA
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Extract

U.S. immigration law has excluded noncitizens likely to become a “public charge” since 1882. When the Trump administration proposed a new Rule expanding the interpretation of that exclusion in 2018, over 55,000 people wrote public comments. These comments, overwhelmingly opposed to the change, are the subject of Rachel Fabi and Lauren Zahn’s insightful article in this issue of The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. The themes they identify resonate with the history of the public charge exclusion, which has always reflected a tension between two aims of American governance — to provide for those in need of assistance, and to shape the nation’s citizenry according to ideals of self-sufficiency.

Keywords

ImmigrationPublic ChargePublic HealthNotice-and-CommentMedicaid
Type
Independent Articles: Commentary
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 50 , Issue 2: Commercial Speech and Commercial Determinants of Health , Summer 2022 , pp. 336 - 338
Copyright
© 2022 The Author(s)

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