{"id":10703,"date":"2019-08-30T17:59:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T17:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10703"},"modified":"2019-08-30T17:59:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T17:59:04","slug":"texas-kids-health-care-nutrition-threatened-by-public-charge-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10703","title":{"rendered":"Texas Kids\u2019 Health Care, Nutrition Threatened by Public-Charge Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Use of programs including Medicaid, SNAP and Section 8 public housing will factor into the determination by immigration officials of who gets a green card. Photo: Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n

by Eric Galatas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BELLAIRE, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0This week the Trump administration finalized\u00a0a new rule\u00a0<\/a>that could deny green cards to immigrants if they access public benefits \u2013 including health care, nutrition and housing assistance \u2013 or if officials believe they might in the future.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cheasty Anderson, senior policy associate with the\u00a0Children\u2019s Defense Fund of Texas<\/a>, says the move ignores more than 250,000 comments submitted by faith leaders, major health-advocacy organizations and health providers, all opposed to the measure\u2019s impact on children, low-income families and people of color.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just a deliberate attack designed to confuse, scare and isolate immigrant communities,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cIt\u2019s a punishment on families with low income, and it\u2019s designed explicitly to keep poor families out of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immigrant-rights groups announced plans to take legal action to block the measure, which currently is set to go into effect in mid-October.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the rule claim the measure will promote self-sufficiency and save taxpayers money. The Trump administration says it did respond to pediatrician concerns, and notes the new rule would not apply to children\u2019s Medicaid coverage.<\/p>\n

Dr. Julie Linton, a pediatrician with the\u00a0American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a>, says while it\u2019s good news that the administration removed children\u2019s Medicaid coverage from the new rule, because the 800-plus page measure is so complicated, it\u2019s already created a major chilling effect.<\/p>\n

She says since the proposal was first announced in September of last year, families have stopped taking kids to the doctor for fear it could lead to family separation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s incredibly misguided of the administration to expect that adding that is sufficient to appease the concerns of pediatricians,\u201d says Linton. \u201cBecause we\u2019re very concerned that this chilling effect will have a deep and really devastating impact on our ability to care for all children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Children\u2019s advocates are urging struggling families to continue to get kids the nutrition and health care they need, in part because the rule won\u2019t go into affect until after 60 days. The new rule would also not apply to any assistance received before the rule goes into effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eric Galatas BELLAIRE, Texas \u2013\u00a0This week the Trump administration finalized\u00a0a new rule\u00a0that could deny green cards to immigrants if they access public benefits \u2013 including health care, nutrition and housing assistance \u2013 or if officials believe they might in the future. Dr. Cheasty Anderson, senior policy associate with the\u00a0Children\u2019s Defense Fund of Texas, says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10705,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10703\/revisions\/10705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}