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Trump has announced a policy of not issuing green cards to immigrants who are likely to receive public assistance—like food stamps, above. This is nothing new.
As long as America has had any immigration policy at all, it has had a policy of not deliberately importing poverty, in the shape of people who can’t or won’t support themselves.
In Peter Brimelow’s 1995 Alien Nation, he reported that in 1839, the authorities were turning back paupers from the poorhouses of Edinburgh, who arrived in New York still wearing pauper’s uniforms.
In 1892, when immigration restriction had just got started, the Democratic Party platform said
We heartily approve all legitimate efforts to prevent the United States from being used as the dumping ground for the known criminals and professional paupers of Europe.
Why was the Democratic Party opposed to this, since even in 1892 they saw themselves as the party of the common man? Well, in 1892, they saw themselves as the party of the common American man.
Immigration enthusiast (and immigrant herself—she’s the author of Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood—Cathy Young asked on Twitter:
What restrictions were there on migration to America in the first 100 years of our history?
Compact Magazine editor Matthew Schmitz replied
In the early years of the republic, ten of the thirteen states enacted or tightened immigration laws. One such law required deportation of immigrants needing public support.
He added this screenshot:
When I was writing and editing for VDARE.com, we wrote about this for almost 25 years, from Whatever Happened To Deporting Immigrants As a Public Charge?, May 19, 2001 to Biden’s Christmas Gift To Penniless Immigrants: New Public Charge Rule Basically Eliminates Public Charge Deportations, October 14, 2022 so, to repeat, it’s nothing new.
Here’s the currently in force immigration law:
Title 8, chapter 11, subchapter 2, part 2, section 1182 of the United States code states: “Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.”
Of course, the media is acting like it is new. The New York Times has this story:
States and Cities Sue Over Trump’s Policy to Restrict Green Cards
The policy would give immigration officers wide authority to deny green cards to people using public benefits.
By Madeleine Ngo, September 14, 2026
The NYT uses a picture of food from food stamps to illustrate this:
That’s because, as Madeline Ngo above writes:
Federal law has long barred immigrants from obtaining green cards if they are likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence. Immigration officers have historically considered the use of cash assistance programs or institutionalized long-term care, but not the use of benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Medicaid.
The Trump administration’s policy would reverse the longstanding practice, expanding the federal programs that immigration officers can consider before determining that someone is likely to become reliant on the federal government.
When Ngo says “longstanding practice” she’s talking about a practice that only goes back to the 90s under the Clinton Administration—which used the same administrative procedure to allow immigrants to get away with this stuff as Trump is using to stop it. See this table from 2001:
And of course, there are now two lawsuits by welfare dependent, immigrant enthusiast states and cities to prevent this:
The states’ suit was brought by New York, California, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
The second suit was led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York and joined by Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Santa Clara County in California, and King County in Washington.
Of course, every First World immigrant who comes to America from some place like England, including journalists like Peter Brimelow, Mark Steyn, or Charles W. Cooke below, knows that immigration authorities tell you you’re not allowed to get welfare.
What they don’t tell you is that they haven’t enforced this since Clinton’s second term. And of course, all this is just refusing Green Cards to those immigrants likely to use welfare.
It would be possible for Trump (and whoever follows him) to go much farther. See here for an example:
But given that Trump is implementing something I’ve been calling for for almost a quarter of a century, I’ll take it!
James Fulford has been writing about the national question for over 20 years, mostly for VDARE.com, more recently for WhitePapers.
"When Ngo says “longstanding practice” she’s talking about a practice that only goes back to the 90s under the Clinton Administration—which used the same administrative procedure to allow immigrants to get away with this stuff as Trump is using to stop it."
Open Borders crowd lying as usual