Public charge policy could affect green card applicants

A significant change to the federal “public charge” potentially expands the circumstances in which the use of public benefits may affect certain immigration applications. The change primarily affects individuals applying for lawful permanent residence, admission to the U.S., or certain visas. The Department of Homeland Security has rescinded the Biden Administration 2022 public charge regulation, which restricted immigration officers from considering immigrants’ use of non-cash public benefits, including many benefits for low-income families such as Medicaid, housing programs and food stamps. Under the new policy, officers may consider enrollment in noncash public benefits as public charge, including Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the country’s largest food assistance program.

The change has created particular concern for mixed-status families. Research cited by Stateline estimates that between 1.4 million and 4.1 million Medicaid and CHIP enrollees living in households with a noncitizen could potentially disenroll because of concerns about the new rule or other immigration-related fears. Importantly, however, public charge rules do not apply equally to all immigrants or all benefits. Refugees, asylees, certain trafficking victims, VAWA self-petitioners, and several other categories are generally exempt. DHS has also stat- ed that it does not plan to attribute benefits received by U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident children to an immigrant parent simply because the children received those benefits.

The he rule is already facing substantial legal opposition. Because the consequences depend heavily on an individual’s immigration category, the particular benefit involved, and who actually receives that benefit, families should obtain individualized immigration advice before unnecessarily terminating benefits for which they or their children are legally eligible.

Employment-based green card backlog tops 1.2 million

The employment-based green card backlog highlights the increasingly difficult wait facing skilled foreign nationals seeking permanent residence in the U.S. According to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy, nearly one million people in the employment-based backlog are from India. Applicants from India, China, and the Philippines are particularly affected because of the combination of limited annual employment-based immigrant visas and per-country numerical limits. Under current law, approximately 140,000 employment-based green cards are available annually across the employment-based preference categories. Significantly, this number includes not only principal workers but also their spouses and children, further reducing the number available to workers themselves. For Indian nationals, the projected waits are especially striking. The analysis estimates that a highly skilled Indian national whose EB-2 case begins in 2026 could face a theoretical wait of 179 years under current conditions. The projected wait is approximately 38 years for EB-3 and five years for EB-1.

The problem is not simply slow USCIS or Department of Labor processing. The larger structural issue is that demand substantially exceeds the number of immigrant visas Congress has made available.

APPLICATION FINAL ACTION DATES—OCTOBER 2026

DATES FOR FILING VISA APPLICATIONS—OCTOBER 2026

Visa Bulletin for October 2026 is available on our website. Please go to http://www.khabar.com/magazine/ immigration/