Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, this is yet another cruel and inhumane attempt by the majority to penalize legal immigrants for accessing health benefits and other government services available to them. The amendment attempts to revert to a Trump-era public charge rule in 2019 that temporarily disrupted a decades-long policy. The Trump-era rule faced several legal challenges, leading to injunctions and halts in its implementation and costing the taxpayers every time the administration attempted to defend it in court. The Biden administration's rule merely restores the historical understanding of a public charge back to what had been in place for decades. Under the Biden administration rule, we align with decades-long policy that simply requires immigration officials to consider whether a noncitizen will become dependent on cash benefits. This is something I would imagine American taxpayers would like to know. Nonetheless, I think it is also important to point out that the idea that immigrants somehow harm our economy or are a net cost to taxpayers is false. For example, earlier this year, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation within the Department of Health and Human Services published a report on the fiscal impact of refugees and asylees at the Federal, State, and local levels from 2005 to 2019.…”