The White House said Friday that Joe Biden, the United States President, will revoke a Donald Trump government rule that requires immigrants to prove they’ll have health insurance almost immediately after arriving in America, a policy former U.S. President Trump’s staff claimed would relieve burdens on American health care system but critics saw as a wealth test for migrants.

Major Facts

Donald Trump’s 2019 rule mandated that prospective adult immigrants have family, individual, or employer-based health insurance lined up within thirty days of arrival, unless they could afford to foot their medical bills, with a few narrow exceptions.

The rule required that individual health insurance intentions be unsubsidized, meaning individuals who receive subsidies through health insurance marketplaces possibly would not qualify.

The Trump government stated it would reduce the financial stress imposed by uninsured individuals visiting emergency rooms, but advocates saw the movement as a stealthy way of making it harder to immigrate to America.

Like lots of Mr. Trump’s immigration-focused executive orders, the insurance requirement has faced lawful challenges. A judge in California blocked the policy from taking influence in 2019, but a federal appeals court reversed that decision late in 2020.

In a proclamation on Friday, Joe Biden stated that his government is committed to expanding passage to quality and affordable health care. However, they could achieve that aim without barring the entry non-citizens’ entry who seek to immigrate legally to that country.

Sixty-five percent is the share of new Permanent Resident Card (green card) holders who would not have met Trump’s insurance condition, either because they lacked health insurance or took benefit of subsidies, the pro-immigration Migration Policy Institute estimated in 2019.

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‘Public Charge Rule’

The health insurance condition was part of a wave of Donald Trump-time policies seeking to make tighter standards for legal immigration.

Most prominently, Donald Trump intended to reject Permanent Resident Card applicants if they have used a wide array of administration programs like Medicaid or public housing in the earlier period or if their incomes put them at risk of needing public assistance in the coming time.

Proposed in 2019, this ‘public charge rule’ was cast as means of ensuring immigrants are self-sufficient, but critics blasted it for excluding productive low-income foreigners. U.S. Federal Courts struck down the rule in 2020, and Mr. Biden selected not to appeal their decision.

American President has gradually turned some of former U.S. President Trump’s strict immigration policies. He unwound a Trump-time program requiring asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico-American border cities while waiting for their court dates, narrowed the types of immigrants without papers targeted for arrest, and tried to stop deportations, though his deportation moratorium was blocked in court in January 2021.

Read Also: Biden says he’ll Reverse Trump Immigration Policies, Six Months Needed