United States officials are cutting down further on undocumented immigrants’ access to healthcare programmes and benefits as part of President Donald Trump’s widening immigration crackdown.
On Thursday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it was broadening its interpretation of a 1996 law that prohibits most immigrants from receiving federal public benefits.
The decision means that undocumented immigrants will no longer be eligible for an additional 13 programmes.
They include Head Start, a pre-school educational programme, and projects that address family planning, mental health, substance abuse and efforts to reduce homelessness.
“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivise illegal immigration,” HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr said on Thursday.
“Today’s action changes that – it restores integrity to federal social programmes, enforces the rule of law and protects vital resources for the American people.”
Critics fear the added restrictions will further marginalise a vulnerable group of immigrants who often have scarce resources, exacerbating public health crises in the US.
The new restrictions relate to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996.
That law — passed under Democratic President Bill Clinton — barred those living in the country without valid immigration documents and those on temporary visas, like students or foreign workers, from receiving major benefits from the federal government.
However, the scope of the restrictions was not spelled out, as the law did not define what counted as “federal public benefits”.
To make things clearer, the HHS issued a legal interpretation in 1998, which prevented access to 31 programmes. Medicaid — an insurance programme for low-income households — and Social Security were among them, as was the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
In a statement released on Thursday, the HHS claimed “the 1998 policy improperly narrowed the scope of PRWORA”, allowing undocumented immigrants to access programmes which “Congress intended only for the American people”.
With Thursday’s additions, the total number of restricted programmes rises to 44.
The HHS’s new policy, which is subject to a 30-day public comment period, will take effect when it is published in the Federal Register.
Since starting his second presidential term in January, Donald Trump has made it a priority to tackle undocumented immigration.
Critics have accused his administration of violating human rights and the US Constitution, as well as exceeding his presidential authority.
As part of Trump’s campaign of mass deportation, for example, the president invoked a controversial wartime legislation to deport hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March. Opponents argue that Trump falsely declared undocumented immigration to be an “invasion” in order to justify denying the immigrants their right to due process.
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