Public Charge

Inside Trump’s “public charge” attack on immigrant families with the Protecting Immigrant Families campaign; Jocelyn Frye on how little has changed since Anita Hill; and Jeremy Slevin returns with the news of the week.

This week on Off-Kilter, the Trump administration is out with its latest attack on immigrant communities — this time in the form of an income test on the Statue of Liberty. A rule posted online to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website over the weekend would massively expand an archaic provision in immigration law called “public charge,” which dates back to 1882, and has been used in the past to keep out Irish Catholics, Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, unmarried women, and other “undesirables.” Rebecca sits down with Shawn Fremstad, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a huge nerd when it comes to the intersection of immigration and public benefits — and Wendy Cervantes, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, one of the organizations leading the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition.

Next, with the Kavanaugh confirmation process moving full speed ahead, despite Dr. Ford’s serious allegations of sexual assault, the #MeToo movement has reached new heights, with countless women sharing their stories — many for the first time — of #WhyIDidntReport. Rebecca talks with Jocelyn Frye, a senior fellow with the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress and former policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama, about how much, and how little, has changed since the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings 27 years ago, the shifting power dynamics that #MeToo has catalyzed, and whether we’re headed towards another “year of the woman” in the wake of this ugliness.

But first, Trump gets laughed out of the U.N., McDonald’s workers stage a massive walkout in cities across the U.S. to protest the company’s inadequate response to sexual harassment, thousands of Arkansans lose health insurance as Trump’s cruel new Medicaid work reporting requirements take effect, and more, as our beloved Slevinator returns with the news of the week.

This week’s guests:

• Shawn Fremstad, senior fellow with the Poverty to Prosperity Team at the Center for American Progress
• Wendy Cervantes, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy
• Jocelyn Frye, senior fellow with the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress
• Jeremy Slevin, director of antipoverty advocacy at the Center for American Progress (and beloved sidekick)

For more on this week’s topics:

• Get up to speed on the Trump admin’s “public charge” rule, how it explicitly targets disabled immigrants, and how it would blow up our system of family-based immigration
• Join the fight against the ugly rule at protectingimmigrantfamilies.org
• Read more from Jocelyn Frye about how Kavanaugh’s nomination is a threat to women in the workplace
• Resources for survivors: RAINN’s 24/7 sexual assault hotline: 1–800.656.HOPE (4673) + more resources at www.rainn.org

For more on this week’s ICYMI topics:

• Here’s Trump getting laughed out of the U.N. — and blaming immigrants for U.S. poverty
• Learn more about the McDonald’s strikes protesting sexual harassment and the hotel workers strikes in Chicago
• Find out more about how 4,350 Arkansans have already lost Medicaid under Trump’s new work reporting requirements

This week’s transcript:

REBECCA VALLAS (HOST): Welcome to Off Kilter, the show about poverty, inequality and everything they intersect with, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, I’m your host Rebecca Vallas. This week on Off Kilter, the Trump administration is out with its’ latest attack on immigrant families and this time it comes in the form of an income test on the Statue of Liberty. I talk with two experts from the Protecting Immigrant Families campaign about the so-called ‘public charge’ rule and what it would mean for immigrant families, including legal immigrant and even U.S. citizen children. Next I talk with Jocelyn Frye, former policy director to First Lady Michelle Obama and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress about what the Kavanaugh confirmation process says about how little has changed since Anita Hill famously came forward in 1991. But first Jeremy Slevin, the Slevinator, back from vacation

SLEVIN: Yes.

VALLAS: Welcome back.

SLEVIN: I am well rested and I’m ready.

VALLAS: You look well rested.

SLEVIN: Thank you.

VALLAS: I don’t even know what that means. I just feel like it’s a thing that people are supposed to say.

SLEVIN: Well yeah I think people always look the same.

VALLAS: Right?

SLEVIN: No one understood that.

VALLAS: I mean you don’t look worse. [LAUGHTER] So I can say that for you.

SLEVIN: It’s a low bar.

VALLAS: So I know you had all kinds of FOMO last week when we had on Chad Bolt in your stead and Chad was fabulous, I do love me some Chad, he and the Indivisible team are amazing but it wasn’t quite the same without you, Slevs.

SLEVIN: Thank you, that’s what I want to hear. I’m going to ignore all the praise for Chad and just remember the part where —

VALLAS: Zoom in. Zoom in on the nice part about you, right, that’s how you maintain your extremely rosy outlook on life, right?

SLEVIN: Yeah, exactly.

VALLAS: Just to hear the positive things. [LAUGHTER] Oh, you white dudes and your healthy egos, is that how you do it?

SLEVIN: Yeah, that’s how we do it.

VALLAS: I’ve been wondering this whole time.

SLEVIN: Yeah, that’s how we maintain our rosy outlook.

VALLAS: It’s good to know, and I’d like to get into that later but not on air. I think is probably the better life decision so Slevs, we don’t have a ton of time this week because we have a really jam packed episode but there’s a lot going on in the news that is not connected to SCOTUS and Kavanaugh and so let’s get through a few of those pieces. It starts with Trump taking a trip to the United Nations.

SLEVIN: Yeah I think for once Trump’s actual words on not the headline news every day. And this is a case where he said some important stuff, he addressed the UN General Assembly, which is meeting this week in New York. He was laughed at which is probably the only thing most people know about this because he said his administration had accomplished more than any administration in American history.

VALLAS: And the response was laughter and then he was like you know, really, and then they laughed more.

SLEVIN: Right, he’s like, not the reaction I expected.

VALLAS: That’s what he said, those were his actual words.

SLEVIN: So but that wasn’t the only laughable thing he said. So he blamed illegal immigration for poverty, basically saying, “Illegal immigration funds criminal networks, ruthless gangs and a flow of deadly drugs. Illegal immigration exploits vulnerable population, hurts hardworking citizens, has produced vicious cycles of crime, violence and poverty. Only by upholding national borders can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity.”

VALLAS: So really similar to a lot of his horrible xenophobic, ugly rhetoric during the campaign where he was calling immigrants murderers and rapists. He was zeroing in a ton on Mexico during the campaign in particularly but doubling down on those comments, which maybe isn’t newsworthy coming from Trump generally but his audience was the United Nations!

SLEVIN: Well and I think what’s extra ironic about him blaming illegal immigration for poverty is that the people who are immigrating, legal or otherwise, are fleeing poverty, are fleeing violence. It’s like blaming refugees for ISIS. We are, these are people who are subject to really terrible conditions and immigration period is in many ways the best remedy for poverty and violence.

VALLAS: And particularly timely to be mentioning this because it isn’t just his ugly xenophobic rhetoric, we’ve heard lots of that throughout his, not just his campaign but also his time in the White House but actually this week, his administration just over the weekend introduced a new rule that actually harkens back to 1882, really archaic provision they’re dusting off from immigration law called public charge, this is a policy that was used in the past to keep out Irish-Catholic immigrants, later it was used to keep out Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany, it’s been used to keep out LGBTQ folks, people with disabilities, unmarried women, there I am on the list, at least for a little while left. [LAUGHTER] Hi Phil! But we’re going to be talking lots more about this later in the episode but just wanted to draw that connection because it’s not just the words he says, his administration is really doubling down on those words through its’ policies in yet another really hateful attack on immigrant communities, more to come later in this episode on that.

SLEVIN: Yeah, so moving on, so there is a lot of action on the labor front this week, especially in Chicago. So there are two major strikes underway right now in Chicago. The first is McDonald’s workers. They marched to the Hamburger University yesterday, which is apparently where McDonald’s trains their managers which is an excellent name. But they’re protesting sexual harassment policy at McDonald’s. so in May many McDonald’s workers filed complaints alledging that they face pervasive sexual harassment and a climate in which women who speak up are retaliated against and they’re ignored and they are demanding better sexual harassment policies at McDonald’s.

VALLAS: And it wasn’t just Chicago, there was actually a series of these organized walk outs and strikes, it was Chicago, it was also San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Kansas City and Durham, North Carolina. So really widespread action on the part of McDonald’s workers, saying it’s not just fair wages that we’re fighting for, it’s also fair treatment in the workplace and that includes an adequate policy and practices from our employer when it comes to addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.

SLEVIN: Of course with all the attention on Kavanaugh, the attention of the Me Too movement over the past year there’s been a lot of focus on really high profile bad actors. But research shows that it’s actually a lot more common among low-wage workers, particularly women of color and the most vulnerable population who are the most at risk. So it’s really significant that this is happening, not just at the high levels but of the people who are experiencing this the most.

VALLAS: And you mentioned a second coordinated action on the part of the labor movement in Chicago. This one has to do with hotel workers.

SLEVIN: Yeah, so 26 hotels, workers at 26 hotels, thousands of housekeepers, doormen, cooks, other hotel employees had stopped working to demand year-round health insurance and other improvements in working conditions in Chicago. They have since reached agreements, this is led by Unite Here, the local union there with about 8 of those hotels but 17 hotel workers are still on strike, refusing to work. Again, it’s amazing, after the decline, rapid decline of both strikes and the labor movement more broadly we’re seeing this uptick in action under Trump.

VALLAS: And it was actually a tough moment that this came for a lot of the folks in Chicago in part because this is one of the busiest times of the year for Chicago tourism and ironically there’s actually a huge conference happening in Chicago that’s a bunch of advocates and policy experts who work on economic justice issues, it’s called the EARN conference, a lot of listeners may actually go it and because of these strikes, the EARN conference in solidarity with the hotel workers decided to move the location away from some of the hotels that were implicated. So kudos to the folks at EPI, the Economic Policy Institute who lead the EARN Network, the Economic Analysis Research Network for standing in solidarity with these workers. So Slevs, we’ve also got news on the Medicaid front coming out of Arkansas.

SLEVIN: Yeah, so as many listeners should remember the Trump administration has been approving waivers for Medicaid to essentially take away healthcare from people who don’t get enough hours at work or are looking for jobs under the guise of so-called work requirements. Arkansas notably was one of the first waivers approved. We now know that over 4,000 people in Arkansas have lost health care because they either failed to jump through the bureaucratic hoops or failed to comply with the stringent new standards and for all the rhetoric that this was not designed to take away health care we now see the evidence that that is exactly what is happening when you implement these rules.

VALLAS: And there’s a federal panel, advisory panel that’s been set up to actually take a look at this and we’ve got folks who are on that panel who are really alarmed by the tremendous loss of health insurance we’re already seeing play out as a result of this rule that coming out of the Trump administration and now spreading to other states. Quote from one of the members of that panel, a doctor, Dr. Christopher Gorton said, “I hope these data scare the pants off people in Arkansas” and now this is what we’re expecting to happen in states across the country as they take Trump up on his offer to take health insurance away from folks who can’t find work or get enough hours at their job. But Slevs, we’ve actually got some good news this week for a change. You actually brought me some good news and we only have a minute for it but let’s end on that note.

SLEVIN: OK, I’ll be real quick. There’s a lot of great news if you just focus on the ideas people are having. This week it’s Elizabeth —

VALLAS: Some people, anyway, maybe not all people.

SLEVIN: Namely Elizabeth Warren, so she introduced a new huge landmark housing bill this week that makes huge investments in building rural homes, gets localities to get rid of outdated zoning rules that makes housing more expensive and harder to build. It helps first time homebuyers and formerly racially red-lined areas, reducing housing discrimination and it offers extra relief to families whose housing was underwater and are still struggling from the 2008 financial crisis.

VALLAS: So in contrast, we know what the Trump administration’s position on the affordable housing crisis is which is they think that we should be tripling the poorest families rents all to pay for their millionaire and corporate tax cuts, that’s what we saw them call for last year and this year again through the Department of Housing and Urban Development headed by Secretary Ben Carson. Kind of a nice refreshing contrast with Warren, some serious policy proposals that would actually move the needle8 on the affordable housing crisis.

SLEVIN: And it’s paid for by raising the estate tax, which only effects the very, very, very wealthiest Americans, which was rolled back under the tax plan so not only does it reduce the housing crisis, it reduces inequality.

VALLAS: So lots going on this week, Slevs, thanks for catching us up in case we missed it, we’ll have you back next week unless you go on vacation without telling me.

SLEVIN: I will not.

VALLAS: Which maybe I’ll not approve as your supervisors and we can cross that bridge later awkwardly as you then say to me how inappropriate it was for me to say on air that you aren’t allowed to go on vacation because you totally are, you work really hard, just don’t do it next week. And don’t go away Off Kilter after the break, digging into the ugly public charge proposal from the Trump administration, you won’t want to miss it.

[MUSIC]

VALLAS: You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas. Just this past weekend, the Trump administration announced it’s going nuclear on immigration by ending the US’s family based immigration system as we know it. What they are proposing to do is to effectively impose an income test to keep out low-income and working class immigrants from the United States of America. A rule posted online to the DHS website, the Department of Homeland Security would massively expand a wonky sounding provision and immigration law which has been used to deny legal status to immigrants considered likely to become a so-called “public charge,” read one of Mitt Romney’s 47%. To cut through the jargon on this wonky sounding rule and what it would mean for immigrant communities and families I’m joined by my colleague Shawn Fremstad, he’s a quote, unquote “senior fellow” at the Center for American Progress and a huge nerd when it comes to the intersection of immigration and public benefits, I’m also joined by Wendy Cervantes, she’s a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, one of the organization’s leading the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition around this rule, thanks to you both before the show.

SHAWN FREMSTAD: Thank you so much for having us.

WENDY CERVANTES: Yeah, thanks.

VALLAS: And Shawn, I couldn’t resist putting your title in quotes because that’s what Breitbart just did to you in quoting you in one of their stories on this topic.

FREMSTAD: Exactly, yeah, I feel really proud of that, I feel like I’ve made it.

VALLAS: I would take it as a compliment, I’m also, I’m going to say here on air what I just said to you before we’ve started taping, you’ve got to put that in your twitter bio right, it’s too good.

FREMSTAD: You know the Breitbart thing is interesting, it’s actually, it in some ways, the headline of that Breitbart piece is “Trump’s merit based immigration reform” and you know, that’s actually what they’re trying to do here and it goes to the radical nature of this. They can’t get that through congress, they can’t get their points based or whatever you want to call it immigration plan through congress so they’re using this vestigial provision, this ancient provision to, exploding the meaning of it to become the equivalent of a kind of points based immigration system. So it’s anti-democratic, I would people in congress across party lines are up in arms about it because it is a permanent change that rewrites the laws using this as a pretext.

VALLAS: So let’s get into what the rule would do and then I also want to bring out some of that history that you mentioned because this is a really archaic provision. They’re reaching deep here, centuries deep to try to figure out how to circumvent congress to try to send a message to immigrant you’re not welcome here. That’s effectively what this does. But get technical, I’m going to stay with you for a second, Shawn, help us get technical, what would the rule that has long been rumored to be on its’ way but finally actually posted this week, what would it do?

FREMSTAD: So the term, the wonky term you’re describing that they use here is ‘likely to become a public charge’ and this is something that’s been in the statutes forever. It is generally meant that if you’re applying for a visa, green card, or certain other kinds of visas an immigration official decides are you likely, do you have a really high probability of becoming a quote, unquote “public charge”. And public charge has typically really for most of the history been defined as somebody who is going to end up in a long-term care institution, having all their needs met, it is meant somebody who will be utterly, really dependent on cash assistance. Those have been the two conventional meanings and if you go way back in history it meant are you going to end up in an alms house or are you going to end up in a poorhouse so again, some place that was taking charge of you. It’s almost like a ward, you are a ward of the state, we’re taking charge of you. We’re paying for all of your needs. And historically it has meant you can’t work or you’re unwilling to work and you don’t have family here who are willing to work and take care of you. So that’s kind of the concept. This really blows that meaning out of the water. It will mean that whether or not you can work is not the defining issue here. Whether or not you’re making a contribution is not the defining issue. It is how much money will you make and will you be somebody who is the upper middle class or will you be somebody who is in the working class and potentially eligible for benefits that now go up into working class and middle class income range like Medicaid, like SNAP. So it’s really a radical redefinition of this that’s very historical.

We talked just a few bits and pieces about the history, the term was first put in immigration law in 1882, it really was, in a sense it was the whole immigration law back in the day. It was just something that initially was aimed at Irish-Catholics, this was the same year that they put into place the Chinese Exclusion Act so it was a very different period where they were very explicit about what they were doing. The term, when congress first put the term in, I don’t remember the language but they referenced ‘lunatics’ and all these other categories.

VALLAS: The exact language here, which I want to read because it sheds so much light on the people in the White House who think this is the right policy for this country in 2018. In 1882, as you said the same year the congress adopted the Chinese Exclusion Act, it adopted this public charge provision prohibiting entry to the United States of quote, “any convict, lunatic, idiot or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge. So that’s the origin here.

FREMSTAD: Exactly. And over the years it has been replaced by other things but it’s always been there but it’s become more and more vestigial and limited in terms of who it actually applies to. The other historical piece, I mentioned this, the word public charge, that’s not language we use or have used for decades in any kind of meaningful way but it dates back to things like the ancient poor laws where a public charge was somebody who was again, being taken care of typically by the county or by the parish or whatever. And it has a lot to do with, in the United States it was often used to keep people from going in between states. You can’t come into state, our community because you’re going to be a charge on us. So it’s all about building up walls.

The other really, just to give you a sense of the evil here and how old this is, you can find references to public charge in the slave codes of slave states in the United States and typically what it meant, how it was used is someone could not be emancipated as an individual slave. The legislature, say in Alabama would grant individual emancipation to slaves but it was always contingent on this not becoming a public charge provision. So it taps into this whole, dark undercurrent of things and I think for me too it connects up to things we’re still talking about today, mass incarceration, racist criminal justice policies, there’s a lot of stuff going on in this rule that gets to things like the fees and fines are used to regulate the poor and various communities and as a profit center. So this rule for instances has a public charge bond, it’s called, where maybe you’re on the borderline of getting admitted, you can now be required to take out a $10,000 or more bond to get in and then once you get in if you say, sign your child up for SNAP or Medicaid, that bond becomes invalid and you have to pay that money back. You’re basically going into debt for the rest of your life so it’s really extraordinary.

VALLAS: The way the National Immigration Law Center, one of the other organizations who is leading this Protecting Immigrant Families coalition with CLASP, Wendy, your organization has put is quote, “no longer would we be the country that serves as the beacon for the world’s dreamers and strivers. Instead America’s doors would be open only to the highest bidder. So really describing exactly what you were just walking through Shawn, I think very succinctly. Wendy, turning to you, what do we know about who would be affected by this rule? There have been a lot of leaks over the months leading up to this moment. It’s not a surprise that this was something the Trump administration has been wanting to do. They’ve just been figuring out how to do it and now that we actually have this language that’s been posted online by the Trump administration telling us their road map for how they want to put this public charge on steroids. What do we know about who would be hurt?

CERVANTES: Well I think it’s important to take a step back and recognize that this is once again another attack on immigrants, families and communities and on the working class and very specifically on the very programs that we know have proven time and again to help lift families out of poverty and to help families get through hard times. There are some estimates on the actual rule themselves that, I’m not the data expert but we know that our underestimate, primarily because they don’t look at the trickle effects of what this rule would do. We know that individuals are connected to families and children are part of those families and while this rule doesn’t explicitly call out US citizen children, we know that US citizen children will also be impacted as well as other children who themselves are immigrants and will be eventually applying for green card[s]. it could penalize those very children from being able to access very basic healthcare. I think that’s one of the things that’s really important to remember. The rule itself talks about how this could lead to worse health outcomes, malnutrition, lack of, increase of use of emergency care specifically by pregnant and breastfeeding moms and children and US citizen children.

And this is actually something that we’ve already seen ourselves. Last year, CLASP conducted a study in 6 states talking primarily to childcare and early education providers to get a sense of how immigration policies in general are impacting very young children. And we heard actually specifically even when there is just a rumor about this proposed rule coming out that families were already dis-enrolling their kids from programs like, dis-enrolling from programs like WIC, not even taking their kids to childcare.

VALLAS: WIC of course, is the nutrition assistance program for women, infants, and children. Just to underlscore who we’re talking about here.

CERVANTES: Yes, exactly.

VALLAS: Actually being taken out of nutrition programs because of fear before this rule had even taken effect.

CERVANTES: Right, which I think is really important to remember that it’s not only what’s in the rule, it’s also just the type of fear that it can create. It’s very complicated and for, it’s not surprising that some parents would prefer to play it safe and choose not to enroll their kids and seek out healthcare that their child might be eligible for, even a US citizen child out of fear that there’s a slight chance that it could change their immigration status or implicate them from being able to apply for a green card or even be not be able to reunify with family members. So I think, and that’s really heartbreaking that we’re putting families in a position of having to make a choice between putting food on the table and being able to either stay in this country, many parents came here to provide their children with a better life in the first place or to be able to reunify with family.

VALLAS: So real similarities with the family separation at the border which is not in the headlines anymore because everything else is in the headlines like Kavanaugh, et. Cetera, which is still very much playing out and is still very much a national crisis. You mentioned that some of the press coverage has actually had vast underestimates of how many people could be impacted, just to put one number to this, especially on the kid front, one in four kids in this country have an immigrant parent and 90% of those kids were born here, making them US citizens. So while you said as US citizen kids might not be called out explicitly in the rule, this will have a huge impact on US citizen kids who have immigrant parents. So Shawn, turning back to you, how is the rule likely to play out? Help us actually think through the nuts and bolts here if it does take effect, just to be clear, this rule is not in effect yet, it is a proposal from the Trump administration. We’re going to get into later in this conversation some of what’s to come in the weeks and months ahead in terms of process, because that’s really important to knowing how we fight back against this rule and stop it from taking effect. But fast forward, pretend we lose, pretend Trump actually does get this rule through and it takes effect, what’s it actually going to mean for immigrant families who end up being impacted?

FREMSTAD: Right, so I think about it, it’s often, may be easiest to think about it in two ways. There’s two big groups of people effect. One is people, immigrants outside the United States who are now applying for a green card, typically it’s going to be a family sponsor kind of basis. So they’re coming here, it may be to marry a US citizen, it may be to bring a parent over, it can be multiple ways so that’s one category of people who are effected. They’ll have to take this public charge test and somebody in; it’s going to be the State Department abroad is going to say are you likely to become a public charge at any time in the future, which means as this rule’s defined it, are you likely, is there a chance at anytime in the future if you’re admitted that you’ll receive Medicaid, that you’ll receive SNAP, that you’ll receive housing assistance.

Then there’s another big group of people, that’s people here in the United States who are applying to adjust their status and get a green card. It may be that they can have various immigration statuses that fall short of actual permanent authorization to work, they apply for adjustment and this standard also kicks into place the standard of likely to become a public charge. And in that case, it’s a DHS immigration official who is applying this likely to become a public charge test. Now I think the thing to focus on here is, “likely to become a public charge”, what does that mean?

VALLAS: It’s like looking in a crystal ball, right? I mean that’s basically what these immigration officials are going to be told they have to do.

FREMSTAND: I think a little bit that there’s that ‘Minority Report’ that movie, the science fiction thing?

VALLAS: Yeah.

FREMSTAD: Where they had the division of pre-crime and in that at least the pre-cogs could predict the future within two weeks. Here you’re having an immigration official looking literally years in advance of what is likely to play out. And there are factors they say, look at age, if you’re over 18 or under 61, there’s less likelihood. They say look at income level, income is a big thing in this rule and if you’re over, if you’re somebody who’s around 63, 64, $65,000 range as a family you’re probably going to be OK but if you’re below that, you’re in trouble. You’ll include things like do you have post-secondary education? It’s very much, again, like in theory, it’s theory it’s kind of like the factors people would look at if we have some sort of points based immigration system. But in points based systems, it’s really mathematical and you add up the points and it’s pretty objective in certain ways. Here, it’s incredibly subjective and part of it is that they just don’t have the authority to do what they’re trying to do and they’re trying to shoehorn it into this language.

So I think one of the real outcomes here is going to be just massive discrimination and massive subjectivity. You’re going to have immigration officials making wildly different decisions on the exact same people. So it’s really a license to discriminate. If you’re somebody overseas coming to apply applying for a green card, that’s not even reviewable by judicial officer or something. it’s really completely in discretion so it’s this example of where there’s just going to be incredible unfairness. I think even in the cases where it’s reviewable, somebody in the United States, it’s going to still end up leading to incredible unfairness. You can even get through, maybe you pass the test on most things, but one thing knocks you out so the officer says well, we’ll let you in on this bond condition and you’re now taken out a $20,000 bond from a for-profit agency and people are looking to ding you on that bond after you come in and make some money on it. So I think it really opens the door to tremendous unfairness in this treatment.

CERVANTES: And I listened to you talk about this Shawn, and I think it’s really creating this dangerous mold for who is worthy, whether you’re in the United States or whether you’re seeking to migrate to the U.S., whether or not you’re worthy of being here, whether you’re worthy of being an American. And as a daughter of immigrants, my own parents wouldn’t have passed this test. I’m married to an immigrant, I’m not sure he would pass this test, I’m not sure many Americans that are here would pass this test.

FREMSTAD: Absolutely.

CERVANTES: And I think it’s just another way that this administration is trying to change the face of this country and it’s personally offensive to someone like me who wouldn’t be here had it not been for my parents being able to pursue the American dream.

VALLAS: And Shawn, you and some colleagues of ours at the Center for American Progress took a look at that question of if we were to apply this public charge test to people who are already in this country, how many of us would even pass it? And you found that it was about 100 million Americans who wouldn’t pass this test, right, the way that it’s written. A huge divide between, as you said, Wendy, the deserving and the undeserving the way that the Trump administration is looking at people and sizing them up. But colored over with tremendous xenophobia and racism in this instance. So Shawn, staying with you for a second here, so there’s a straw man question I want to ask but I feel like a lot of folks listening might be wondering. So isn’t there extensive history within our immigration of keeping people out that we don’t want in this country for one reason or another? So in that way, is this really all that out of step with our nation’s immigration history? How do you see this fitting in with the longer term picture of how our nation has treated immigration policy?

FREMSTAD: Right, it’s a good point and this provision has been part of that history, this provision has been abused, misused, and even in the early days very intentionally targeted at categories of people on the basis of where they were coming from. So for example, you have a lot, the history is really interesting and fascinating here. You have a lot of documented history. Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, this rule being applied to keep them from coming to the United States. You have President Hoover in the ’30s during the Great Depression, on the one hand he said this rule in normal times we would let anybody in and they’d pass this rule if they’re able to work, but it’s the Great Depression and we don’t have enough jobs for white Americans so we’re going to use it to keep out Mexican farmworkers who for decades had been coming to work in the United States. So it was used in these ways to create, to amp up I would say discrimination during periods of nativism.

But there’s also counter histories that are interesting. We had Hidetaka Hirota, you had him on the show. He wrote the, a year or two ago the history of the early decade of the public charge rule and it was used, he looked specifically at how it was used both New York state and Massachusetts in the 1870s really, it was before it became a federal law. And even those two states applied it very differently. I don’t remember exactly how it broke down but I think New York was actually very welcoming. And they saw their job as bringing people in, helping them integrate, so it was much more not keeping people out as it was helping them be successful and that included things like social services. Massachusetts was a more hard line and you could see that replaying here again really.

VALLAS: And you’re referring to Professor Hidetaka Hirota, he’s a professor of history at City College of New York, he’s also the author of “Expelling the Poor”, which is a book really looking at exactly this, America’s long history of keeping out immigrants who come from poverty, although it has these interesting kinds of twists and turns, definitely worth going back and listening to that segment where he joined you and me for a conversation about the history here. So Wendy, back to you because you’re bringing in the personal element here, which I think is so important. I feel like in conversations about immigration policy, mainstream media are almost always talking about people. It’s sort of a ‘them’ conversation. And very rarely are people who can actually say, actually this is what this means for me and for my family, even part of that kind of a conversation, what are you hearing from immigrant communities. We talked a little bit about the chilling effect and some of the fear that’s playing out but what are you hearing from immigrant communities as this debate around who deserves to be in this country, which is really fundamentally what this comes down to, continues to play out?

CERVANTES: Well, we’ve been hearing from immigrant families since the very first time that there was a rumor about this potentially coming out. And I think it’s important to remember that immigrant families across the country including those that are lawfully present have been living in fear since this administration took office. And it’s because not only, they’re afraid about whether or not they’re going to be able to stay here, whether they’re going to be able to raise their children here. And we’ve been hearing lots of questions about what types of programs would be included in this proposal if there’s any risk of individuals being deported. If there’s going to be repercussions and being able to sponsor family members in the future and I think it just goes to this whole agenda that this administration has had to try to make life as miserable as possible for immigrants living here in the US and trying to deter people from coming here. So whether it’s ripping families apart at the border or separating families in the interior or just trying to keep families from being able to reunify, it’s really just another policy that goes against our American values of family unity. So yeah, we’ve been hearing from a lot of families about their concerns.

VALLAS: And I want to be clear again. I said it before, I’m going to say it again, this rule has not yet taken effect. This is something the Trump administration is proposing and in fact there is an entire nationwide campaign rising up to say this is not the kind of country we want to live in, I mentioned before it’s called the Protecting Immigrant Families coalition and CLASP, your organization is a big part of that, I mentioned the National Immigration Law Center, a leader of that as well, what can we expect in the weeks and months ahead process wise, what sort of steps does the Trump administration need to take to make this rule not just an idea but actually the policy that is in place in this country? And what does that mean for folks who are listening and want to get involved to say how do I fight back? This isn’t legislation that’s been proposed in congress so it’s pretty different the kinds of strategies and tools that advocates and members of the public who want to get involved need to take advantage of and information is really important to that. So I’ll start with you Wendy and then bring in Shawn.

CERVANTES: Yeah, sure so we as you mentioned we’re co-chairs, CLASP is a co-chair of the Protecting Immigrant Families campaign. We are a coalition of over 200 state and national organizations that represent health groups that are interested in health care and nutrition and children’s issues and the faith community. It’s a very diverse coalition of people who know that this proposed rule would impact the everyday lives of people that either they serve or they advocate on behalf of. And so we have been watching developments on this very closely. The minute that this hit the news on Saturday we started the analysis and the rapid response and we, as soon as this hits the federal register that’s when we have the 60 day comment period. And one of our goals through the campaign is to submit as many comments as possible to try to delay the rule and obviously our ultimate goald would be to see this never get finalized in the first place but to definitely delay it and possibly narrow it even futher. It’d be a secondary success. So we are really calling on people to join us in this fight. We invite people to visit our campaign website at www.protectingimmigrantfamilies.org. There we have a lot of resources that will be updated on a regular basis with the summary of what the rule includes and how people can take action. And we also have information on how people can submit comments and also how they can speak up in their local communities.

VALLAS: And the hashtag if folks want to follow the conversation on Twitter as well is if I’m getting it right, #protectingfamilies.

CERVANTES: #Protectfamilies.

VALLAS: #Protectfamilies, no ‘ing’, just #Protectfamilies, so you can find out lots more there. Shawn, what should we be looking for in the coming weeks.

FREMSTAD: I think in terms of on the rule itself, I think it’s important to keep up with the advocacy things. I think we should think about this as, this is a political issue. This is probably motivated in large part by a desire to get the nativist base out for Trump. But I think it also has the potential to really backfire against the GOP. You already see Republican officerholders coming out against this rule. I think it was Representative Curbelo from Florida who has said he’s opposing this rule. I think it’s very important regardless of who your member of congress is or where you live to speak up in opposition to this rule. Because it’s something that on one hand it’s a public comment process, it’s an administrative process. That is really a political process if they hear enough from members of congress, from state and local officials, that can make an impact so I think that would be the thing to look at. I don’t even think the rule has been officially published, right?

CERVANTES: No it hasn’t been officially published and one of the things we’re also urging those who work with immigrant communities is to make sure that they make it very clear that this isn’t something that’s in effect now, that it’s also not retroactive as it’s currently drafted so no use of benefits now that are not already currently part of the public charge test.

FREMSTAD: I think that’s very important and there are, we’ve obviously highlighted some of the tremendous problems but’s also, there are groups this does not apply to. It doesn’t apply to refugees, it doesn’t apply to certain other humanitarian immigrants. If you’re a naturalized citizen there’s no public charge test for citizenship or for renewing a green card. So I think it’s going to be very important to have good information out there and to build connections between experts and communities and people who can answer questions to make sure families have the information they need.

VALLAS: So lots more information on our nerdy syllabus page on Medium including links to all the resources Wendy was just talking about but ProtectingImmigrantFamilies.org is your one stop shop if you’re looking to learn more, get involved and get that news as it breaks that this actually has been published in the federal register which is the technical step the Trump administration needs to take to for this to then trigger that 60 day comment period which is so important. if ever there was a comment period people need to participate in and share with the Trump administration their thoughts and reactions to this proposal, this is that one. Wendy Cervantes is a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, better known as CLASP, one of the leaders of the protecting immigrant families campaign you were just hearing about. Shawn Fremstad is a quote, unquote “senior fellow” at the Center For American Progress and one of my go to nerds when it comes to anything to do with immigrants and public benefits and now you know why. Shawn and Wendy thanks so much for taking the time, this is a truly ugly proposal and one that I hope to have you guys back on soon to talk about how we defeated it.

CERVANTES: Great, thanks.

FREMSTAD: Thank you.

VALLAS: Don’t go away, more Off Kilter after the break, I’m Rebecca Vallas.

[MUSIC]

You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas. While statistics vary, some one in four women in the United States are believed to have experienced sexual assault, a number widely understood to be a significant underestimate given that about two in three instances of sexual assault are never reported to the police. I am one of those women. My own experience with sexual assault took place when I was 14 and a student at an educational summer camp. He was 17 and the popular boy. I remember how special I felt when he chose me out of all of the girls until he climbed on top of me and refused to listen when I told him no. When a counselor found me and urged me to tell camp administrators what had happened, I was terrified but I listened to her when she said I needed to come forward if not for my own sake, then for that of other girls whom he might put in the same awful position. Instead of concern however, I was met with frustration, I was met with disbelief. I was told I was being dramatic and besides, camp would be over soon, they didn’t even see fit to send him home. So l left it there. That’s a story I’ve never shared publicly until now in the wake of President Trump and Senate Republicans’ widespread public disbelief of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the sexual assault allegations she’s made against Brett Kavanaugh. I am just one of countless women finally sharing my own sexual assault story and just one of the many who never came forward before we feared we’d be met with disbelief or worse. To all the survivors out there being forced to relive what for many of us was the most traumatic experience of their lives, as Dr. Ford gets effectively put on trial for the crime of challenging the antiquated power dynamics that force all too many survivors to stay silent I want to say that I believe you. And with that I’ll transition from the personal back to the policy and political side of the Kavanaugh confirmation controversy and bring in my colleague Jocelyn Frye. She’s a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama. She’s an expert on sexual assault and sexual harassment. Jocelyn, thank you so much for coming on the show.

JOCELYN FRYE: Well thank you for having me.

VALLAS: So there’s been a lot of minute to the minute horse race analysis going on within Kavanaugh’s controversial nomination to the Supreme Court. So what I wanted to do with you was to take a little bit of a step back and to reflect a little bit on the moment that we’re all living through and particularly that women are living through right now in this country including and especially those of us who are survivors of sexual assault. But women generally, I think a lot of folks were hoping, myself included, that maybe we had made some progress on this front since Anita Hill came forward with her allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas when he was a nominee to the Supreme Court, he is of course now a justice on the Supreme Court, notwithstanding those nominations. But it appears that we have not made a ton of progress even though it is 2018 and that was the early 1990s. Help us a little bit with the history here for folks who know the name Anita Hill but maybe don’t remember very well the details of the ugliness in the early 90s.

FRYE: Well it’s a great question and you’re right. There is this feeling of déjà vu all over again. Professor Hill in 1991 came forward and said that she had been sexually harassed by then Judge Thomas and at the time he was the chair of the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And in 1991 sexual harassment was still a new issue. The Supreme Court had only a few years before said it was illegal and having that type of conversation with fairly graphic recollections of his jokes and efforts to intimidate her were new and people weren’t used to seeing it. And I think after a lot of reflection she decided it was important to come forward because this was the person who was going on the Supreme Court, not surprisingly and saying this happened to her and that he subjected her to these really abusive profane comments when they clearly weren’t welcomed. And the irony of a person who was charged with enforcing the law violating the law over and over again, was something that should have been disqualifying for the Supreme Court.

VALLAS: Now Anita Hill came forward, she made these allegations public and she told them at great lenghh and in really gory detail in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, something we are now expecting Christine Blasey Ford in the coming days before some of the same members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who were in place back then when Anita Hill came forward. But staying with Anita Hill for a moment, she was widely disbelieved and in many ways put on trial after coming forward.

FRYE: I think that’s right and I think that’s what stuck with people. If people remember it’s what one of the things that helped spur the ‘Year of the Women’ in the Senate years after because I think one the one hand she was effectively put on trial and her credibility was questioned, her sanity was questioned, it couldn’t have really happened, maybe she thought it happened, all these crazy things that are said about survivors of harassment and assault repeatedly. And at the same time what was true then and then what became clear after the fact is that there was a whole host of corroborative evidence that was never introduced. And then it became clear that this was really more about putting somebody on the court as opposed to trying to get to the truth. And these are things that now Professor Hill has said herself about how the process should be improved to try to avoid the mishandling and missteps that occurred at that time.

VALLAS: And part of that was in a widely read op-ed that she published in The New York Times reflecting on the tremendous similarities and déjà vu as you put it that so many of us are identifying and feeling in this moment where Dr. Ford is so publicly being disbelieved. I want to read President Trump’s word because they are so just ugly and he deserves all of the shame that anyone can possibly direct in his direction for what he said, they bear repeating. He said, “I have no doubt that if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have immediately filed with local law enforcement authorities by either her or her loving parents,” a little snark in there, “I ask that she brings those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place.” The implication here being if she didn’t come forward to the cops clearly it couldn’t possibly have happened and that’s one of maybe the most common and frequently myths when it comes to sexual assault and sexual harassment is if you didn’t come forward and go public and go to the police and file a report, then there are questions about credibility.

This, of course, kicked off a firestorm on social media, #WhyIDidntReport became a viral social media phenom with celebrities like Alyssa Milano and others coming forward with personal stories and full disclosure, I shared my own personal story using that hashtag. What do you see as the significance not just of Trump’s comments, because they’ve been discussed extensively in the media but of this tremendous backlash of women coming forward and saying you want to know why I didn’t report? Well here’s why.

FRYE: Right. I think it’s a reminder of where we are at this moment and really to your earlier point, that this is not 1991, this is 2018 and people are really tired, women are really tired of people in power trying to dismiss or disregard their experiences as irrelevant or as if they didn’t happen simply because they didn’t come forward on a timetable that they think is appropriate.

I think the president’s comments just reveal a lack of understand and knowledge and quite frankly, ignorance about these issues. There are many, many examples, if not most assault and harassment survivors don’t come forward immediately and we’re seeing in real time why. When the president of the United States uses what should be valuable time to comment on this type of a matter and dismiss it before even having all the facts, it’s disheartening and insulting.

VALLAS: A second accuser in the recent days has come forward as well and she ahs leveled her own accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault behavior against Brett Kavanaugh, her name is Deborah Ramirez and Trump responded similarly and in some ways almost more disgustingly to her allegations saying the second accuser doesn’t even know, thinks it could have been him and here’s what I want to zero in on. Quote, Trump said, “She admits she was drunk.” As though somehow someone who is drunk couldn’t possible be sexually assaulted or maybe the implication is was asking for it and was somehow to blame. How do you react to the president of the United States in 2018 saying that type of a thing from the highest levels of the national stage?

FRYE: Well, suffice to say it’s not helpful. And it’s actually very disappointing and I think just reveals his own lack of knowledge. And I think we can’t be distracted by ignorance. This is a moment for people to step forward and talk about the truth and to push back against things that we just know are not true. Nobody should be subjected to rape or assault or harassment because they have been drinking or anything else. That’s not how the law works and if the president doesn’t know that, that’s unfortunate but it doesn’t matter. The law is the law and for purposes of somebody going to the Supreme Court at the end of the day you want somebody who actually does know the law and should know better to make sure that the person on the court is somebody who’s fit to be there. And I think that we can’t say enough how hurtful it is to have leaders repeating the myths of the past but the good thing about this moment, the important thing about this moment is that women like you and others are pushing back and saying you know what, that’s wrong, and we’re not going to stand for people pushing these myths and untruths that really are a rationalization for the abuse and harassment of women and men. It’s unacceptable.

VALLAS: Now on top of the widespread and continues and very public disbelief that we are hearing not just from President Trump but from members of the Senate Judiciary committee, all Republicans as well we’re also hearing them start to say another extremely troubling and deeply offensive middle finger to women is basically what it is, which is OK you know what, even if this did happen, even if something did happen, do we really want to hold anyone that’s going to be considered for a Supreme Court seat or even elected politics to this impossible, unfair standard of not ever having sexually assaulted or harassed someone? Those aren’t exactly their words, I’m obviously paraphrasing but that’s effectively the message being sent when there are responses from our nation’s leaders, and in this case Republicans that effectively tell women this shouldn’t be disqualifying in their opinion for a Supreme Court nominee?

FRYE: Well it’s ridiculous quite frankly and is that the standard that we should use, absolutely. Nobody should be on the Supreme Court who has any sort of record of rape or sexual assault. That shouldn’t be hard to say, if it is hard to say then you have to question why that person is actually an elected official to begin with. And this is not about being overly harsh or being overly difficult, it’s just that in 2018 you expect and want somebody on the court who you have the utmost confidence in in terms of hearing a wide range of cases and if you decide fairly arbitrarily and randomly that there’s certain crimes or misconduct that we think is OK that sends a horrible message. It particularly sends a really terrible and offensive message to women that somehow their experiences are, it’s bad but we don’t want it to be disqualifying. I think that there’s clearly room for people to seek retribution around forgiveness and all those sorts of things. But that’s not where we are at the moment. We don’t have a nominee who said I did it and I’m sorry or whatever. We have a nominee and said it’s a lie and is professing to have lived a pristine life. So this is a plainly different scenario and in that context where the person’s credibility has already been questioned you have to ask yourself well what’s going to happen when this person is on the court? We rely on the Supreme Court to be people that we trust will do the right thing. So when you have multiple examples of somebody not doing that you have to rethink whether that person is right for the court.

VALLAS: Rebecca Traister, a must follow in this moment and an important voice on these issues wrote recently for The Cut quote, “the message to women, especially whose voices might disturb the peace, has always been that things will go better for them if they keep their mouths shut.” Before you and I started taping you were making the really important point that at its’ heart, all of this really comes down to power and power dynamics in 2018. Would love to hear you talk a little bit about that.

FRYE: well absolutely. Sexual harassment or sexual assault are ultimately about power and about the misuse and abuse of power to intimidate in course people who perpetrators believe are powerless. And so part of the way that you correct the problem is that you empower survivors and I think what we’re witnessing with the Kavanaugh nomination is what happens when power pushes back. When you see the senate and the entire infrastructure of the leadership repeatedly trying to lift up somebody who’s been accused of sexual assault and try to slowly erode the credibility of the person who’s come forward. What you’re seeing is people using that power to dismiss and deem un-credible an individual person who’s coming forward. They’ve tried to ram this trough. They wanted her to come quickly. They didn’t want to investigate. All of these things that are about insuring that individuals have power behind them is exactly what the committee has rejected.

VALLAS: What outcome would we need to see from the next several days and maybe weeks, maybe who knows how long this goes on. If Republicans get their way it’s not that much longer if some cooler heads start to prevail, maybe there is a little bit longer that this goes on. What would we need to see in terms of the Senate Judiciary committee and in terms of the national conversations and what we’re hearing from our leaders to start heading in a direction where women have any level, any discernable modicum of trust in our nation’s leadership that they have an equal seat at the table. Because the opposite message is very much what is being sent right now.

FRYE: I think in an ideal world you’d have senators from both sides of the aisle saying we need to step back and actually make this process work right. We need to do the investigation, we need to have an independent assessment of the now various allegations that have been made and we need to come back with that information, informed by that information to make a judgment that people can believe in. right now the process looks messed up and it looks biased. And it is doing much more harm to the institution of the Supreme Court than the court deserves. And it should, the committee’s obligation is to put the best person on the court. Nobody is entitled to that position. It’s a privilege, it’s not a right and their task is to do their job and leave the American people with the confidence that a full, robust analysis has been done.

VALLAS: In the last minute or so that I have with you, assuming that that is not how things play out because it certainly isn’t the set of signals we’re getting from leaders in congress and also from President Trump and from the White House, what do you expect that we’re going to see from women in the weeks and the months ahead? You mentioned the year of the women which was really this outpouring of increased interest and mobilization by women when it came to running for elected office. That was actually the very positive response to the Anita Hill hearings and the way that she was mistreated in those proceedings. We’re already seeing tremendous outrage and backlash from women in the ways we’ve been talking about. What do you see as the next steps, whether it’s within the resistance or whether it’s more broadly women in this country considering how these hearings have gone?

FRYE: Well I think you’ll continue to see women speak up and speak out and depending on the outcome I think that women will let their lawmakers, policy makers know what they’re feeling. I think you’ll continue to see the activism that we’ve been seeing and I think that women will deploy the wide variety of tools from marches and meeting with their members of congress to running for office and most importantly using their vote to demonstrate how they feel about the actions that people are taking. And I think we are not going to go back, regardless of this outcome I think women and men across the country are asking for change and demanding change and we will change regardless of this outcome. And I think if it is a negative outcome it will only encourage people to double down and work harder.

VALLAS: And for sexual assault survivors, maybe of whom and living through and reliving trauma in this moment as this all happens I would be remiss if I didn’t flag the National Sexual Assault Hotline, that RAINN runs, it is 1–800–656–4673 and that’s a 24 hour hotline. Jocelyn Frye is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, she’s also the former policy director to former First Lady Michele Obama. Jocelyn thank you for everything that your’e doing in this moment and thank you for taking the time to come on the show.

FRYE: It’s always great to be here.

VALLAS: And that does it for this week’s episode of Off Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m your host, Rebecca Vallas, the show is produced each week by Will Urquhart. Find us on Facebook and Twitter @offkiltershow and you can find us on the airwaves on the Progressive Voices Network and the WeAct Radio Network or anytime as a podcast on iTunes. See you next week.