Immigration Issues

"Public-Charge" Doctrine Not Being Enforced

Under U.S. immigration law, newcomers who become dependent on welfare here may be deported by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a division of the Justice Department. Immigration policy experts question why the law is seldom used, and why 10 states are funding food stamps and other welfare benefits for some immigrants.

However, the law is used frequently by State Department officials to deny visas to the U.S. when immigrants are judged likely to be a burden on the welfare system. In fact, tens of thousands of applicants for visas are turned away every year, but only about one person a year is deported on a public-charge basis.

  • According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, U.S. consulates abroad deny roughly 10 percent of visa applications on public-charge grounds.

  • The State Department reports 33,230 applicants were refused immigrant visas in fiscal 1996 because they were likely to become public charges -- compared with 423,440 visas issued.

  • But the Immigration and Naturalization Service says only 31 aliens were deported as public charges in the period 1971 to 1980, and Carnegie estimates only 12 people were deported as public charges between 1981 and 1990.

"It's just obvious," economist Milton Friedman said recently, "you can't have free immigration and a welfare state."

Source: James R. Edwards Jr. (author), "Whatever Happened to Public-Charge Laws?" Investor's Business Daily, May 8, 1998.

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