US expands officers’ authority to deny green cards over “public charge” risk

In the United States, immigration officers will be able again to deny green card applications to people they deem likely users of government assistance. On July 16, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule that effectively brings back the “self-sufficiency test” introduced during the first Trump administration and later rolled back by the Biden administration. The new requirements will take effect September 18, 2026.

For investment-based immigration, the immediate impact appears limited: applicants who qualify through residency pathways tied to investment purchase programs generally do not fit into the “public charge” logic. However, the rule matters less because it changes the baseline for wealthy candidates, and more because it becomes part of a broader tightening of the procedures nearly every applicant goes through.

What exactly the rule changes

At the federal level, immigrants who could become a “public charge” have effectively been barred from entry and/or from obtaining status since the 19th century. The debate has never been about the principle itself, but about which specific types of benefits will be considered when assessing eligibility.

Previously, officers focused mainly on cash forms of social support and long-term institutional care. Now the approach is returning to something closer to the 2019 model: back then, the test was expanded to non-cash benefits, part of the changes were challenged in court, and later the Biden administration fully eliminated the mechanism.

The key difference in the current package is the rescission of the 2022 regulations that formally limited what could be counted against an applicant. Instead, a broad evaluation based on the “totality of the circumstances” approach is introduced.

Officers may consider receipt of means-tested benefits, including Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance. At the same time, the assessment will also include personal factors: age, health condition, marital/family status, assets, education, and skills.

There is also an important timing limitation: only benefits received on or after September 18, 2026 will be considered. This offers some “time-based protection” to people who relied on Biden-era standards, but it also forces everyone else to make decisions in advance.

Cooling effect—and market reaction

According to DHS estimates, about 950,000 people in immigrant families may decline benefits they are eligible for, or stop receiving them out of fear for their status. A large share of those affected are U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families. In this situation, hospitals and nonprofit organizations that rely on participation in Medicaid programs are already anticipating negative consequences.

DHS’s official position frames this as a “restoration of the baseline principle,” under which immigrants are expected to be able to support themselves. Human-rights advocates, however, read the situation differently. Jeff Joseph, an attorney and leader at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), called the rule a “hit to legal immigration” and warned that broad discretion by officers increases the risk of arbitrary decisions.

The main complaint is insufficient clarity. The rule requires “individual, fact-based consideration of each case,” but it does not provide a clear list of criteria that would unambiguously separate “approvable” from “deniable.” Every year, around 588,000 applicants try to obtain status inside the country (adjustment of status), and for each of them a new uncertainty factor is introduced without any published scoring framework.

Not everyone in the professional community disputes the goal itself. As Adam Jukhnevich, head of 21 CBI, put it, the principle “is not new”: most people who move do intend to support themselves. What concerns him is the mechanism—“a test that isn’t written down and changes with every administration.” Applicants, he argues, should be able to see the rules in advance.

Why investors end up “outside the framework”

For investors, public charge logic is usually secondary. For instance, under the EB-5 program, the applicant must invest at least $800,000 and provide documentary proof of the lawful source of every dollar. Under the “Gold Card” model, the entry threshold introduced by the administration this year—based on a “pay-to-stay” concept—starts at roughly $1 million. By definition, this profile does not fit well with the image of a future benefits recipient.

A further “safety net” is created by the affidavit of support: family and employer sponsors sign an obligation to reimburse the government for costs related to most benefits that a new resident may receive. As a result, public charge issues often become less legally decisive when there is a financially capable guarantor.

At the same time, there is a notable irony in the setup: a policy marketed as protecting the interests of “working taxpayers” ends up hitting harder low- and middle-income working families, while wealthy candidates gain an advantage through economic arguments.

A broader tightening pattern that truly matters

Bringing back public charge is not the only change. In May, USCIS revised its approach to in-country adjustment of status: it is now treated as “exceptional assistance,” not as a routine procedure. In practice, this shifts some applicants toward consular processing abroad and leaves EB-5 in a more uncertain zone.

For investors, the green card process will become slower and more discretionary at every step. There is also added procedural risk: given the new rule, applicants must file Form I-485 using the current version. Older versions submitted after September 18 will be rejected.

These “small” procedural traps—combined with consular appointment backlogs and the approaching 2027 deadline for EB-5 regional centers—narrow the window for a correct, clean application. Overall, the system becomes less predictable.

This does not mean the door is closing for wealthy migrants. The point is different: the cost of document preparation is rising, and the value of getting a flawless package the first time increases. For those who never planned to “fail” a self-sufficiency test, the more practical and narrower takeaway is this: in a system where decisions are increasingly “sorted” by the level of financial means, money must be documented, justified, and defendable before September 18, 2026—not after.

Jukhnevich’s advice is to prepare rather than litigate: gather evidence of your resources in advance, reduce dependence on any single service or jurisdiction, and ensure that your status does not hinge on one officer’s single decision. And one more key point: if the government asks newcomers to prove their self-sufficiency, it should demonstrate the same discipline in its own financial policy.

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