Today, the Department of Homeland Security’s discriminatory public charge rule goes into effect. The rule will exclude many people with disabilities from this country and discourage those already in the US from using critical public benefits, including Medicaid-funded home and community-based services on which many people with disabilities rely to fully participate in their communities. Now that the rule is in place, it is vital that people understand what the new public charge rule does and does not mean before they make decisions about foregoing critical benefits. You can learn more about the rule here.
While the rule’s implementation had initially been halted by preliminary injunctions, last month, the US Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision staying the nationwide injunction against the public charge rule, leaving only one statewide injunction in Illinois in effect, which the Court then also stayed on Friday, in another 5-4 decision. This means that the rule will now go into effect across the entire country.
Although the rule is now in effect, efforts to overturn it continue. CPR and other disability organizations have filed several amicus briefs in the litigation, which can be found here and for more on today’s implementation, read our alert here.