Thread by @matt_cam

1/ One of the worst parts of the proposed new DHS "public charge" rule would resurrect a 400-yr-old idea, punish lower-income immigrants, AND deliver a massive new giveaway to Wall Street.

Not seeing much out there on this piece right now, so here's what you need to know:

2/ The idea of a "public charge bond" goes back to the earliest colonial days. If someone coming over from Europe didn't seem like they would be able to support themselves, the ship's captain would have to put up a given amount of money to keep them off the dole or take them back

3/ As part of the "Passenger Cases," SCOTUS struck down the city of Boston's attempt to collect public charge bonds from ship captains as unconstitutional in 1849, finding that only the federal government had this kind of power. But it didn't actually exercise it until 1882.

4/ The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Congress's first major immigration law, tied race-based immigration restrictions and the presumption that incoming immigrants would be a "public charge." This is not a coincidence, and it's still working for Trump today.

5/ As DHS acknowledges in its own explanation of why it is bringing public charge bonds back, these bonds have not been in much use in the modern immigration system, and USCIS doesn't even have a way to collect them today.

That's about to change.

6/ Imagine being told by an immigration officer that your case was borderline under the new "public charge" guidelines and the only way that you would be able to legally immigrate to the U.S. would be if you put up a minimum of $10,000. That's where we're heading.

7/ Like the majority of native-born American citizens, most immigrants almost certainly don't have $10K to spare and will go to the free market for loans. This rule will create 100s of 1000s of new debtors each year, and is nothing less than a windfall for Wall Street banksters

8/ FICO as a stand-in for character is peak neo-liberalism. The proposed rule's focus on credit scores is deeply disturbing, and a precedent I do not want to see for how the federal government makes decisions about anything more than *actually lending money* to citizens.

9/ The proposed rule doesn't directly address the public charge grounds of deportability, which allow immigrants who become a public charge within five years to be physically removed from the U.S. But given how radically the proposal redefines "public charge," that must follow.

10/ If you asked him, I'm sure that Stephen Miller--whose stink is on every one of the 447 pages of this proposal--would tell you that this just restores the original intent of the law.

Abject bullshit. We already got the need for this kind of thing well behind us in 1996.

11/ Modern immigration law already requires a U.S. citizen or resident (usually the family member petitioning for you) to sign off as a financial sponsor and assume the liability of any public benefits you shouldn't have taken. It's a fairly elegant system, and it works.

12/ This is all extra personal for me. I was born in the U.S., but spent the first few years of my life in federally-subsidized public housing, ate household groceries subsidized by WIC, and got a very good public school education. IDK what my family would have done without it.

13/ #EastBoston has thousands of Trump voters who proudly claim on our local FB group at every opportunity that their immigrant parents and grandparents "never took a dime from anyone."

Boston welfare rolls tell a different story.

14/ Between these new public charge rules, the #RAISEAct, the #TravelBan, sharp cuts to refugee admissions, etc. it's all kind of right there: Don't even try to immigrate until you've already made your fortune. It all couldn't be further from our national myth.

15/ Anyway, here's a totally unrelated story about some upstart kid named Friedrich Trump. Back to my sick day.

/THREAD

Oh, meant to add this up there somewhere earlier:

Under this proposal, public charge bonds will be underwritten by "a surety company certified by the Department of Treasury."

Looks like we drained that swamp just in time, folks!