Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition Releases Public Charge Resources for Election Season

The Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition (PIF) has shared materials designed to help community-based organizations reassure concerned families that the current federal public charge policy is more durable than prior policies.

As the election nears, many immigrant communities are recalling the harmful rhetoric against immigrant communities that characterized the 2016 and 2020 elections. Since the last election, the Biden administration has taken important steps to rescind, vacate, or withdraw proposed and finalized housing regulations that were intended to harm immigrant families. Yet research has shown that that even after the Biden administration halted the so-called “public charge” rule in March 2021, immigrant families have continued to be reluctant to participate in programs that provide vital food, health, and housing assistance.

PIF’s resources are intended to help counteract the “chilling effect” caused by the previous administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. The resources include:

  • Words that Work – This brief summarizes the results of a two-year opinion research effort aimed at distilling the key messages that mitigate public charge concerns and increase immigrant families’ likelihood to seek help and care.
  • Public charge flyers – Accurate, relatively accessible information about the public charge policy in 10 languages.
  • Social media samples – Text and images for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
  • Template Public Charge Presentation – Slides that can modified to insert into community presentations (including a version in Español).

Read more about public charge in NLIHC’s 2024 Advocates’ Guide.