A clause in U.S. immigration law that restricted those “likely to become a public charge” has made a disturbing comeback, reports Laurel Leff.
By Laurel Leff
The Conversation
During the Nazi era, roughly 300,000 additional Jewish refugees could have gained entry to the U.S. without exceeding the nation’s existing quotas.The primary mechanism that kept them out: the immigration law’s “likely to become a public charge” clause. Consular officials with the authority to issue visas denied them to everyone they deemed incapable of supporting themselves in the U.S.
It is not possible to say what happened to these refugees. Some immigrated to other countries that remained outside Germany’s grip, such as Great Britain. But many – perhaps most – were forced into hiding, imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos, and deported to extermination centers.
The Trump administration is now resurrecting “the public charge” clause as a way to limit legal immigration without changing immigration law. On Aug. 12, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced new regulations that will deny admission to those unable to prove under tough new standards that they won’t claim government benefits.
As someone who has studied European Jews’ attempts to escape Nazi persecution and immigrate to the U.S., the administration’s evocation of the public charge clause is chilling.
Preventing 1930s Immigration
Wikimedia Commons
The public charge clause stretches back to an 1882 act, which was then incorporated into a 1917 law, that spelled out the classes of aliens who could be excluded from the U.S., including “persons likely to become a public charge.”
For the first five decades, the public charge provision barred few people, basically only those unable to work due to physical or mental handicaps.
After the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression, the Hoover administration sought to combat unemployment by reducing the number of immigrants. But it didn’t want to change the recently implemented Immigration Act of 1924 that set annual overall and country-by-country quotas.
In September 1930, the State Department issued a press release that told consular officials that they “must refuse the visa,” to anyone they believed “may probably be a public charge at any time.” The instructions achieved the desired effect. Within five months, only 10% of the quota slots allotted to European immigrants had been filled.
When the Roosevelt administration assumed power in March 1933, it continued the new interpretation of the public charge clause. As refugees from first Germany and then most of Europe sought to escape Nazi persecution, the State Department used the public charge clause to limit the number of foreigners, most of whom were Jews, from immigrating to the U.S.
With anti-foreigners pushing for legislation decreasing the quotas and refugee advocates trying to hold the line, the out-of-the-spotlight approach had political appeal. A State Department official acknowledged during hearings on a bill to cut the quotas 90% that “the administrative regulations were working so well that there was ‘no urgent need for legislation.’” Indeed, none of the numerous quota-cutting bills introduced throughout the 1930s passed.
Neither the language of the 1917 act nor the press release that doubled as an executive order indicated how applicants could prove they wouldn’t require public support. Should they show proof of assets? What kind of assets and in what amounts? Should they provide sworn affidavits from Americans vowing to support them? But who could provide such affidavits, and what financial resources must they possess?
With few guidelines and vast discretion, consular officials could basically do what they wanted.
Top State Department officials made clear what it was they wanted: to reduce immigration as much as possible. They also made clear that consular officials’ careers hinged upon accomplishing that goal. The State Department largely succeeded, primarily by relying upon the public charge clause, historians who have researched its use agree. Once World War II started in 1939, security concerns also were used to deny visas.
About 200,000 refugees from countries under Nazi domination were admitted to the U.S. as immigrants. About 550,000 could have been under existing U.S. quotas. Only once during the 12 years of the Nazi regime, in 1939, was the German quota filled. In all other years, the quota ranged from 7 percent to 70 percent.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Reviving the Public Charge Clause
Although immigration laws have changed considerably since the 1930s and 1940s, the existing Immigration and Nationality Act retains a version of the public charge clause. It is as vague as earlier incarnations. Anyone who is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible, but the act doesn’t define what that means.
A related statute suggests “the availability of public benefits” shouldn’t be “an incentive for immigration.” It allows administering agencies to consider factors such as the applicant’s age, health, family status and financial resources.
Immigration Services, which is under the Department of Homeland Security, will use the Trump administration’s new rules to determine admissions to the U.S. at ports of entry and to assess status changes for certain immigrants already here.
The regulations specify negative and positive factors immigration officials must consider in deciding who is likely to become a public charge. Applicants who have enough money to cover “any reasonably foreseeable medical costs” or have a good credit score, for example, are judged favorably. Those who lack private health insurance, a college degree, sufficient English-language skills for the job market, or a well-to-do sponsor are assessed negatively.
Of recent applicants from Europe, Canada and Oceania, 27% had two or more negative factors under the new rules, Mark Greenberg of the think tank Migration Policy Institute told The Washington Post. Of those from Asia, 41 percent had two or more negative factors. Of those from Mexico and Central America, 60 percent had two or more negative factors.
The State Department is drafting similar rules for consular officers to use in issuing visas. The Department of Justice is preparing to provide standards for use in deportation and other immigration court proceedings.
The regulations leave the ultimate determination “in the opinion” of the appropriate government official, but I see little reason to doubt the result will be fewer and different types of immigrants. The Trump administration is as likely to succeed in communicating what it wants to lower-level officials as was the Nazi-era State Department.
Laurel Leff is associate professor of journalism, Northeastern University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Before commenting please read Robert Parry’s Comment Policy. Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed.
Many U.S. citizens would be hard put to meet the new standards set for immigrants. I personally know U.S. citizens who are out of work, without a high school diploma, bad credit, and no money in the bank who would be turned away at the border, except they were lucky enough to be born here.
If our trade policies would encourage our Central and South American neighbors to pay better wages and treat its workers with dignity, then maybe they wouldn’t flood to our shores.
If employers, such as Trump’s hotels, weren’t so eager to hire illegals, then the pipeline might dry up.
Trump is right :-) he’s doing exactly what this country needs we should only take in immigrants who are going to Aid our country not bring it down to a third world shithole. Why should our government have to support everybody who wants to show up here? You can’t support your family don’t get to come a lot of countries are just like that cuz I’m looking at moving to some other country myself some time and you have to prove you have so many months income saved up and you have a constant income Etc why shouldn’t America have the same type immigration policy? More power to Trump he’s getting my vote again :-).
Why do you hate freedom so much ? Why are you too ignorant to understand US sanctions cause this migration ? If the US wouldn’t weaponize food, medicine, energy, and credit, these people would stay home.
You cannot limit free movement around the world or you’ll end up captive labor yourself. The foreign policy of the US for the last 80 yrs is what’s wrong with America due to the fact it favors about 2500 “investors” who finance both sides of every illegal war and regime change in order to loot and pillage the rest of the planet.
If there is one thing I have learned over the years it is that Americans cannot be educated, even if there is historical proof. Since 1986 or so I have listened to a radio program called Office of the Americas and learned a lot about Central America especially since Ronnie Raygun became involved in Iran Contra. The program was only one hour a week, but it taught me a lot. The program is no longer on because the host Father Blase Bonpane died. Someone still runs the website. I took a course in empire and studied how the US practiced imperialism on small insignificant countries in Central America so they could perfect it and apply it to larger countries.
In 2009 I went to meetings of the Answer Coalition and they tried to educate Americans about the US coup in Honduras when a group of people attacked the palace and overthrew the president. Without one moment’s hesitation Hillary accepted the new government as the official government of Honduras. The Answer Coalition subsidized a tour of the US for 3 people in order to educate the American public about the very difficult economic times in Honduras. Americans are slow to learn, and it is nearly impossible to teach them. I remember when the CIA removed the former priest Aristede from office in Haiti, put him on a plane and sent him to Africa. Amy Goodman flew with him on the plane and interviewed him for Democracy Now. The poor in Central America must be kept poor so United Fruit, Chiquita Banana, or other imperialists can profit.
I subscribe to a newsletter called Rights Action and these are some of the latest headlines.
The role of Canadian mining in the plight of Central American migrants
18 month struggle to free Edwin Espinal, Honduran political prisoner detained by U.S. & Canadian-backed regime (Collingwood Today report)
Exposing actual policies of Canada and the U.S. in Honduras (Toronto Star article by Rick Salutin)
Finally, an article in Canada’s mainstream media about Canada (and the U.S.’s) policies and actions in Honduras since the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup in 2009.
If there is one thing I have learned over the years it is that Americans cannot be educated, even if there is historical proof. Since 1986 or so I have listened to a radio program called Office of the Americas and learned a lot about Central America especially since Ronnie Raygun became involved in Iran Contra. The program was only one hour a week, but it taught me a lot. The program is no longer on because the host Father Blase Bonpane died. Someone still runs the website. I took a course in empire and studied how the US practiced imperialism on small insignificant countries in Central America so they could perfect it and apply it to larger countries.
In 2009 I went to meetings of the Answer Coalition and they tried to educate Americans about the US coup in Honduras when a group of people attacked the palace and overthrew the president. Without one moment’s hesitation Hillary accepted the new government as the official government of Honduras. The Answer Coalition subsidized a tour of the US for 3 people in order to educate the American public about the very difficult economic times in Honduras. Americans are slow to learn, and it is nearly impossible to teach them. I remember when the CIA removed the former priest Aristede from office in Haiti, put him on a plane and sent him to Africa. Amy Goodman flew with him on the plane and interviewed him for Democracy Now. The poor in Central America must be kept poor so United Fruit, Chiquita Banana, or other imperialists can profit.
I subscribe to a newsletter called Rights Action and these are some of the latest headlines.
The role of Canadian mining in the plight of Central American migrants
18 month struggle to free Edwin Espinal, Honduran political prisoner detained by U.S. & Canadian-backed regime (Collingwood Today report)
Exposing actual policies of Canada and the U.S. in Honduras (Toronto Star article by Rick Salutin)
Finally, an article in Canada’s mainstream media about Canada (and the U.S.’s) policies and actions in Honduras since the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup in 2009.
“In many ways, citizenship in Western democracies is the modern equivalent of feudal class privilege—an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances. To be born a citizen of a rich state in Europe or North America is like being born into the nobility (even though many of us belong to the lesser nobility). To be born a citizen of a poor country in Asia or Africa is like being born into the peasantry in the Middle Ages (even if there are a few rich peasants and some peasants manage to gain entry to the nobility). Like feudal birthright privileges, contemporary social arrangements not only grant great advantages on the basis of birth but also entrench these advantages by legally restricting mobility, making it extremely difficult for those born into a socially disadvantaged position to overcome that disadvantage, no matter how talented they are or how hard they work. Like feudal practices, these contemporary social arrangements are hard to justify when one thinks about them closely.”
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/case-for-open-borders/
So you don’t believe in having borders you’re just a globalist right? Everybody is not literally created equal you can look around yourself and see that this country is also not created equal to say name any country in Africa. Just like in an organization there’s always a CEO and there are always janitors the same with people in the world America cannot support the world. Nor should we have to… I don’t like seeing my country turned into a third world s******* if I wanted to live in a third-world s******* I’d go across the southern border to live. If we must take immigrants they must have something of value to our country that’s the way it should be and that’s the way many other countries do.
You’re too ignorant to understand that your privilege is due to bombs and guns as well as fraud and thievery. These people would stay home if we hadn’t ruined their economies by subsidizing and thus weaponizing the essentials of life.
The whole purpose of the article is stated in the last sentence…. When a professor of journalism doesn’t make a distinction between internationally recognized terms as refugee and immigrant, misleading the reader in order to make a political point, we are very close to what some would call fake journalism. CN should know better.
After WW 2 ended, Venezuela was one of the very first countries to welcome Jewish refugees – at a time when the US and Canada were still keeping doors shut.
And before as well as during WW2 Bogota (and Shanghai) was a place where Jewish refuges could go without having to apply for a visa. In 1938 my Jewish father (my mom was not Jewish) was incarcerated in Dachau. We lived in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Because of his service in WW1 he was allowed to apply for release from Dachau on condition that he would leave Europe. I was not aware of the details of all negotiations but I knew that we were going to Bogota because I was learning Spanish. Just before the final documents were ready WW2 broke out. That stopped our emigration.
I wonder why in this article no distinction is made between immigrants and refugees. International law applying to refugees (as well as most other parts of it) is above national law, however seems to be nonexistent for the US. While immigrants might be under the countries legislation, refugees are per se eligible for certain rights. Any refugee belongs to the family of mankind – if a country wants to stay in that family it has to respect a refugee in its rights.
The whole purpose of the article is stated in the last sentence…. When a professor of journalism doesn’t make a distinction between internationally recognized terms as refugee and immigrant, misleading the reader in order to make a political point, we are very close to what some would call fake journalism. CN should know better.
There is, in practice, little distinction to be drawn and any attempt to do so is rarely made in good faith. People have always moved around the world and to stop them will always be cruel and self-defeating. That means opening our borders.
Sorry to hear you do not want to use the legal terms used by international law and from that premise to conclude borders should be open. You understand that just by using the term borders that implies a whole framework of internationally recognised legal terms. But why bother ?
If you remove borders, massive amounts of global wars will be the consequence.
Thinking that borders have no purpose is extremely stupid, and I think youre not that stupid. You actually want this.
There may be those2 label “Nazi-era State Department” as the present. If so sign me up
It isn’t just the wars and revolutions/coups birthed by our government that cause these refugees. The giant western corporations, especially agribusiness, have been taking over the land for plantation crops (which also harm the land) and putting the farmers off and into cities to survive.
If we had respected THEIR borders perhaps today they would be in a position to respect our own.
This includes Nazi Germany which was set up by our bankers, corporations…and armed with Swedish steel. When the injustice and shenanigans are part of this conversation, we can chat with more weight.
The 1930s/1940s “public charge” provision helped to enable the holocaust because of the “public charge” provision’s MISAPPLICATION to Jews threatened by Nazi Germany and its allies. That “public charge” provision MISAPPLICATION disregarded the special human rights emergency that explained the need of granting asylum to the threatened Jews, an that “public charge” provision MISAPPLICATION was an irrational, because many entry-denied Jews were highly-skilled in important fields or were members of such entry-seeking persons’ families.
The current situation is utterly non-parallel. Neoliberal politicians assert a need of permitting entry of Central American immigrants because they are fleeing violent oppression wrought in their native countries.
But: (1) any oppression has been caused by the same neoliberal politicians and their Deep State. Those politicians and their Deep State can end any such oppression if they wish, since they are the source and cause any such oppression. (2) Overwhelmingly most such immigrants are not fleeing violent oppression but merely seeking employment in the U.S.
Illegal immigration — mostly Mexican and Central American — his glutted the labor supply with low-skilled or non-skilled workers willing to accept abysmally low pay. That labor glut caused unemployment of U.S. citizens and, to a lesser extent, legal immigrants.
Also, that labor glut has done nothing to improve productivity in the skilled labor fields that need numerical enhancement of the labor force — though it supplied cheaper labor and higher profits to unscrupulous employers who hire illegal immigrants (and, thereby, commit antisocial class B federal misdemeanors, 8 U.S. Code §1324a & 18 U.S. Code §3559).
Therefore, the Trump Administration’s “public charge” immigration policy it laudable and not anti-humanitarian.
CORRECTION: “and” rather than “an”
and that “public charge” provision MISAPPLICATION
not
an that “public charge” provision MISAPPLICATION
Sorry.
ALAS, ANOTHER CORRECTION:
In the last paragraph, immediately before “laudable,” the term “it” ought to be “is.”
Thus: “Therefore, the Trump Administration’s “public charge” immigration policy is laudable and not anti-humanitarian.”
if the u.s. government actually wanted to do these countries in latin america a favor and reduce the number of people attempting to immigrate here, it would change the incredibly stupid drug prohibitions that are destroying the rule of law in those countries, and not a little here.
the fbi and the t men did not defeat al capone, lucky luciano and the other bootleggers, anheuser busch and jack daniels did.
I think it should be pointed out that both Democrats and Republicans are neoliberals, a term that refers to economic policy, a new laissez-faire, and not politics.
Mr. Lauria:
Your observation is correct, but does not join issue with any of my comment’s points and is irrelevant to the pertinent matters.
(1) Neoliberal economic “theory” bears no real substance, no actual effect, save if and when politicians manifest it in legislation, administrative rules or actions, executive orders or actions, or judicial decisions. (And, alas, our judges — court judges and administrative law judges — are political beasts whose decisions reflect or manifest their politics; hence they, too, are politicians.)
(2) The matter is not the political party of an official or judge whose action manifests neoliberalism. The matter is the neoliberalism’s manifestation.
Irregular migration does have a measurable, albeit small, effect on jobs and pay. Why are you blaming people who migrate? They, like you, want only to work to make a better life for themselves and for their families – a laudable aim. The people who are paying their low wages are those against whom you should be aiming your ire and the capitalist system which enables them. But is that too radical a notion for you and for your society?
Surely the government must prosecute all who increase their profits by employing illegal aliens and paying low wages. But Illegal immigration’s job-market/low-pay effect is not “small.” It is very substantial.
Also illegal immigration increases substantially the citizenry’s tax burden and the government costs of the public welfare, government services, and infrastructure burdens imposed by non-tax-paying illegal aliens.
Alas, SRH, your comment’s premises and assertions clash with the science of economics and current economic reality.
And illegal immigration’s economic harms are not caused by “the capitalist system” (especially since U.S. has ceased being capitalist and become a corporate-welfare/finance-industry-welfare state). The problem is the rabid greed and psychopathology that explain neoliberal politics and its propaganda and the ignorant, misled, and delusional socio-political/socio-economic perceptions of most U.S. citizens.
…until you factor in the long term effect of dividing the globe up into corporate industrial zones ran by corporate fascist elitists.
We could try jailing the elites who hire illegals. Ever wonder why Cheeto or anyone else refuses to do that ?
Funny how it’s no labor law can be enacted or enforced that would curb the abuse of undocumented labor don’t you think ?
You can’t immigrate to Canada without a job and your own healthcare insurance.
They are smart enough to know having more people dependent on their public services for citizens would collapse their system.
We have citizens living in the streets and without jobs and working 2 jobs to survive.
We need to start caring about our own citizens and stop this virtue signaling for even more poor desperate people to add to the problem.
Too many sociopaths dismissing any form of concern for people outside inner circles as “virtue signaling”…
Too many sociopaths creating the conditions that people need to escape and using the USA as their safety value.
It’s not sociopathic to care about your family and community and country.It is sociopathic to want to sacrifice them for some presence of virtue.
Being compassionate isn’t supposed to be a suicide pact. I don’t bring every homeless person back to live with me because it would destroy my life.Thats just sanity.We already have a homeless problem and suffering population and you want to add to that?
We should get the USA sociopaths out of these peoples countries and help them build their own future.
BERNIE SANDERS SAYS U.S. CAN’T HAVE ‘OPEN BORDERS’ BECAUSE POOR PEOPLE WILL COME ‘FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD’
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-open-borders-poverty-world-immigration-1388767%3famp=1
Good move by the present administration.
Since at least WWII most refugees are the result of US wars. They are the proverbial “chickens come home to roost”. Call it refugee blow back.
That refugees chose the very nation responsible for their lot is ironic. So one may ask why refugees chose the US as the asylum nation? The Vietnamese boat people were generally from the US puppet government of the South. Cuba, Venezuela, some from the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, and various north African nations) etc. all were part of the small elite that run US/empire vassal states and where their nations are now ruled by non-elites. There are exceptions such as Central America – Honduras, Guatemala, who seem to be fleeing danger and in some cases deep economic poverty caused by US interventions.
My sense is most of these refugees represent what we might refer to as 1st generation Patriots, something you’d think Trump folks would like on an ideological level. Trump does like the special refugees, upper middle class European origin Latin Americans. I was listening to a retired big league base ball player the other night. He was a Cuban exile. He made a visit to his “home land” and was aghast at what he saw. From his perspective it must have been better when the few elites ruled with mafia controlled gambling, prostitution, and drugs as a vassal of the US. Now, after 60 years of embargo Cuba doesn’t seem to have the material wealth he thinks would make it a “great country” (but he thinks this is all Castro’s fault). I thought: this is what many refugees represent. A cognitive dissonance. This gentleman must have been fairly young when, after years of Cuban baseball preparation, he “escaped” to make his fortune in the US of A.
The two Congresswomen are an exception. As children of refugees they have seen through the deception, the cause of how they got here.
And the capitalism that profit from these wars are using the USA as a safety value against revolution.
It is more accurate to formlate the issue as “Immigration Services announced new regulations that will deny admission to those unable to prove under tough new standards that they won’t claim government benefits” … already reserved for those rich WELL beyond common belief or imaginable need.
FASCISM is CORPORATE GREED is NEO-CONSERVATISM is NEO-LIBERALISM is EXCEPTIONALISM is CLASS WAR is STATE TERRORISM is MILITARISM is MILITARIZED SURVEILLANCE is MILITARIZED POLICING is MIND MANIPULATION is CENSORSHIP is PROPAGANDA is REPRESSION is REGRESSION is DEREGULATION is PRIVATIZATION is CHRISTIAN/ORTHODOX/ JEWISH FUNDAMENTALISM is RACISM is WHITE SUPREMACY is HATE is XENOPHOBIA is NARCISSISM is PSYCHOPATHY is VIOLENCE is TYRANNY is ENSLAVEMENT is DISPOSSESSION is EXPLOITATION is DESTRUCTION is MASS MURDER is GENOCIDE is ECOCIDE is OMNICIDE is COLONIALISM is GLOBAL DOMINATION is AMERICA.
Build the wall.
Tell us why.
Maybe he builds walls for a living. Maybe he’s so enamored with China that he wants us to have a wall too – I mean, theirs is even called the “great” wall, so it must be great.
Sometimes, I guess, life imitates art — if satire is art.
In Ukraine, they are outraged by the positive nature of the talks held on August 19 by Russian President The funeral of Sanction called the meeting of Putin and Macron
“The funeral of sanctions” called the meeting of Putin and Macron
Here is an article that looks at how certain Nazis were welcomed with open arms in the United States after the Second World War:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2015/06/nazis-in-america-marriage-of-convenience.html
Despite being the “enemy”, they had something that Washington wanted.
“they had something that Washington wanted.” Like knowing how to build and launch rockets.
Why is this disturbing? A nation that doesn’t control its borders immediately stops being a nation. The sole purpose of having governments is to control borders.
I seem to remember reading how the purpose of government is to fulfill the needs and interests of the people. Controlling borders could be part of it, so I doubt it’s the only purpose.
How absurd. Was your pol sci teacher a former ICE agent?
You are very, very wrong. “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, …” Do you believe that you know more than James Madison?