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

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.