FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 20, 2026

Housing Works condemns Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind “public charge” regulations, which will create fear and uncertainty that will discourage eligible individuals and families from accessing needed healthcare services and puts their lives at grave risk.

(NEW YORK CITY) Housing Works condemns the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision to move forward to rescind the "public charge” regulations, leaving immigrants in fear that the use of life-saving services will jeopardize their ability to make a new life in the United States. We are shocked that DHS has chosen to move forward with this radical change despite their acknowledgement that the lack of clear guidance will discourage immigrants, as well as United States citizens in mixed-status households, from accessing essential health, nutrition, and housing services they are legally eligible to receive; that it will create financial strain for healthcare providers, landlords, and others participating in federally funded programs, impacting state and local economies; and that it will negatively impact public health, including undermining control of infectious disease and increasing reliance on emergency rooms.

Responding to over 8,800 overwhelmingly negative public comments on the proposed change, the Trump Administration concludes that the harms caused to immigrants, including children, to healthcare systems, and to federally funded programs, and to individual and public health are justified by their goal of “disincentivizing immigration due to the availability of public benefits.”

Disingenuously, DHS asserts that this change does not prevent immigrants from accessing public benefits as it does not address eligibility. What it does is present people with the impossible choice of accessing critical services or preserving their immigration status.

For decades, regulations governing the public charge grounds of inadmissibility have provided clear guidance on what programs can and cannot be considered in a public charge assessment, explicitly excluding essential public health, healthcare, and social services programs.DHS now rescinds this guidance without providing replacement regulatory text, leaving each determination as to whether a person is likely to become a “public charge” in the future entirely to the discretion of individual immigration officers who are free to consider use of any public benefit. Even DHS acknowledges in their published final rule that they “cannot eliminate the possibility of officer bias or racialized assumptions about self-sufficiency.” Yet they ask that we we trust DHS to establish, and officers to follow, agency guidance not subject to public review and comment, to make determinations based on “officers’ good judgment and sound discretion.”

“DHS does not dispute that rescission of the 2022 public charge regulations will create a chilling effect that will result in disenrollment or foregoing enrollment in services designed to meet the basic human rights of every person in the United States.” Said Charles Kings, CEO of Housing Works. “At Housing Works, we are particularly concerned that withdrawing clear guidance will create predictable fear and uncertainty that will discourage eligible individuals and families from accessing needed health care services, worsening the national HIV and Hepatitis C epidemics by discouraging people from seeking HIV and HCV testing, prevention, and care.We must push back against these cruel and misguided attacks on immigrants that undermine the health and wellbeing of all Americans.”

Press contact: Ginny Shubert, Housing Works

###