In February 2020, the U.S. government began to implement a new Public Charge rule that greatly expands the definition of “public charge” when determining admissibility for legal permanent residency (LPR). The rule seeks to determine not only whether applicants used public benefits in the past, but also whether they are likely to use them in the future. However, predicting future use based on characteristics measured at the time of application, such as English language proficiency and income, is difficult. We evaluate the risk of being deemed inadmissible as well as the likelihood of using public assistance by regional group. Using a sample of recently arrived LPRs in the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, we find that Mexicans/Central Americans face disproportionate risk of being deemed a public charge despite their relatively low public assistance use. This increased risk would likely alter the composition of newly admitted LPRs with relatively fewer Mexican/Central American LPRs.

2020 年 2 月，美国政府开始实施新的公共负担规则，在确定合法永久居留权 (LPR) 的可接纳性时大大扩展了“公共负担”的定义。该规则不仅旨在确定申请人过去是否使用过公共福利，而且还旨在确定他们将来是否可能使用这些福利。但是，根据申请时测量的特征（例如英语水平和收入）来预测未来的使用是很困难的。我们评估被视为不可接受的风险以及区域集团使用公共援助的可能性。在 2013-2017 年美国社区调查中使用最近到达的 LPR 样本，我们发现墨西哥人/中美洲人面临着被视为公共负担的不成比例的风险，尽管他们的公共援助使用率相对较低。这种增加的风险可能会改变新接纳的 LPR 的构成，而墨西哥/中美洲的 LPR 相对较少。