Immigrant families across Texas are facing growing uncertainty as a broader federal public charge policy is set to take effect Sept. 18, raising concerns about green-card applications and fears surrounding the use of health, nutrition and other public assistance programs.
Immigrant families across Texas are facing growing uncertainty as a broader federal public charge policy is set to take effect Sept. 18, raising concerns about green-card applications and fears surrounding the use of health, nutrition and other public assistance programs.
During an American Community Media national news briefing, immigration and public health experts warned that the effects are already being felt, even before the new policy takes effect.
The expanded public charge standard gives immigration officials broader discretion in determining whether a green-card applicant may become dependent on public assistance. The change represents a departure from the narrower standard in place since 2022.
Xiao Wang, CEO and co-founder of Boundless Immigration, said applications filed before Sept. 18 will continue to be considered under the existing standard, even if the government does not adjudicate them until months later.
The new policy also is not retroactive, Wang said. Applications filed before Sept. 18, 2026, will be considered under the previous rules, while the expanded standard will apply to new applications moving forward.
For eligible applicants who are prepared to file, Wang recommended doing so before the deadline and seeking guidance from a qualified immigration attorney or authorized immigration assistance provider.
But experts said the reach of public charge extends far beyond those actually applying for green cards.
“The fear is bigger than the rule,” Wang said.
During the previous expansion of public charge, Wang said research found that one in five adults in immigrant families reported avoiding a public benefit for which they were eligible because they feared it could harm their immigration status. Among low-income families, that figure rose to three in 10.
That fear can affect entire households, particularly mixed-status families in which children are U.S. citizens but their parents have a different immigration status.
Wang said benefits received by family members, including Medicaid or food assistance for U.S.-citizen children, generally are not considered benefits received by the person applying for a green card. Yet families may still give up assistance for eligible children because they fear jeopardizing a parent’s immigration status.
Those concerns are particularly significant in Texas, where children’s access to health insurance was already a challenge.
During the briefing, a journalist with decades of experience conducting community outreach in Harris and Fort Bend counties described difficulties getting eligible families to enroll in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. He recalled going door-to-door and holding community events to educate Hispanic, Pakistani, Asian and other underserved communities about available coverage.
Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, acknowledged the challenges.
“Texas is a very tough state,” Alker said.
She said Texas, along with Wyoming, has typically had one of the highest rates of uninsured children in the country and noted that families already face problems accessing Medicaid and CHIP even when immigration status is not a factor.
Nationally, Alker said 2.3 million fewer children were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of June 2026 than when President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.
Researchers do not yet know how many of those children have become uninsured or exactly what factors account for the decline. Alker said, however, that researchers suspect fear within mixed-status families is among the contributing factors.
The potential consequences extend beyond insurance numbers.
Alker said when Medicaid enrollment among children declines, uninsured rates have historically increased. Children without insurance can have greater difficulty accessing primary and preventive care, including treatment for common childhood conditions such as asthma.
Medicaid and CHIP play an outsized role in children’s health care. Alker said an estimated 40 to 50 percent of children nationwide have received health coverage through the programs.
Health coverage is not the only safety-net program experiencing declining enrollment.
Dr. Giridhar Mallya, a public health physician and senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has fallen by 4.5 million people over a nine-month period, including nearly 1.5 million children.
“These are declines, enormous declines that we haven’t seen since the 1990s,” Mallya said.
Mallya said the drop cannot be attributed simply to an improving economy and pointed instead to policy changes and increasingly burdensome paperwork requirements as factors driving people from the program.
Loss of SNAP benefits can also have consequences inside schools.
Eligibility for SNAP can automatically qualify children for free or reduced-price school meals. If children lose SNAP eligibility, they can lose that automatic qualification and their families may have to complete another process to prove they qualify for school meal assistance.
For families already struggling to navigate complicated eligibility requirements, language barriers and immigration concerns, experts said additional paperwork and uncertainty can become another deterrent to seeking assistance.
The public charge rule does not apply equally to all immigrants, and experts repeatedly cautioned against families making decisions about health care or food assistance based on rumors or incomplete information.
The larger concern, they said, is that uncertainty surrounding immigration enforcement can cause families to withdraw from programs regardless of whether using those benefits would actually affect their immigration case.
That distinction could be especially consequential in the Houston region, one of the nation’s most diverse metropolitan areas and home to large immigrant communities.
As the Sept. 18 implementation date approaches, experts urged families with immigration questions to seek reliable, individualized legal guidance before giving up health, nutrition or other assistance for which members of their households may be eligible.
For Houston-area families, the consequences of getting that information wrong could extend well beyond an immigration application. It could determine whether a child has health insurance, receives preventive medical care or has enough food on the table.
