Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is rescinding a 1998 interpretation of a law that allowed illegal immigrants to access certain government-funded programs, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on July 10.
The health secretary is rescinding the interpretation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), a law that said illegal immigrants cannot obtain “federal public benefits.”
The 1998 interpretation by the HHS said the law’s definition of benefits “does not provide sufficient guidance for benefit providers” and that HHS was stepping in “to facilitate compliance” with a requirement in the law for providers to verify a person’s qualifications for benefits.
It said that certain programs, including Head Start, which provides child care for lower-income families, were accessible to illegal immigrants.
That interpretation improperly narrowed the scope of the law, letting illegal immigrants access programs that lawmakers intended only for Americans and qualified immigrants, such as immigrants granted asylum, HHS said on Thursday.
“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” Kennedy said. “Today’s action changes that—it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people.”
The updated policy applies the definition of federal public benefit in the law.
The statute defines the benefits as ‘“any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license” provided to an individual, as well as “any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit.”
Head Start is among the programs included in the updated and expanded list of classified “Federal public benefits” under the PRWORA, HHS said on Wednesday.
In addition to Head Start, HHS is including about a dozen other programs that were previously excluded. Among them are the Community Services Block Grant, the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness Grant Program, and the Title X Family Planning Program.
HHS cited its change as stemming from a February executive order from President Donald Trump, which directed officials to identify government-funded programs that “currently permit illegal aliens to obtain any cash or non-cash public benefit” and to then align those programs with the PRWORA.
“Title IV of the PRWORA states that it is national policy that ‘aliens within the Nation’s borders not depend on public resources to meet their needs,’ and that ‘it is a compelling government interest to remove the incentive for illegal immigration provided by the availability of public benefits.’ But in the decades since the passage of the PRWORA, numerous administrations have acted to undermine the principles and limitations directed by the Congress through that law,” Trump wrote at the time.
A notice on the HHS update said people have 30 days after it is formally published to submit comments. The notice has not yet been formally published.
HHS said in the notice that it would apply the updated interpretation immediately because “any delay would be contrary to the public interest and fail to address the ongoing emergency at the Southern Border of the United States.”
The Department of Education on Thursday said it was rescinding the 1998 interpretation of the PRWORA that allowed illegal immigrants to access federal education benefits, while the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of HHS, previously said it would increase oversight to make sure states did not pay for health care for illegal immigrants, citing Trump’s order and the PRWORA.
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