OUR WORK

We were formed in 2017 to combat the racist and exclusionary Trump-era public charge policy and other harmful actions by the Trump administration. PIF serves a forum for its more than 750 partner organizations to convene and collaborate on advocacy, community engagement, narrative change, and other shared priorities.

PIF’s Work on Public Charge

In 2018, the campaign generated popular opposition to the Trump Administration’s public charge proposal. More than 266,000 people and organizations submitted comments – the overwhelming majority of which opposed this proposal. This was only possible through our diverse coalition of partners and hard working advocates from all over the country engaging in unique ways with their communities.

While the Trump Administration finalized its public charge regulation in 2019, litigation delayed implementation until February 2020, just weeks before COVID-19 hit the United States. The policy’s “chilling effect” amplified the pandemic’s impact on immigrant families of color, and we worked throughout 2020 to document the harm for journalists and policymakers. PIF also increased its community education efforts around healthcare and vaccine access, developed ways for our partners to join in federal advocacy actions, and developed resources to help service providers and advocates engage in their communities.

In January 2021, more than 500 PIF partners urged the Biden administration to immediately begin rolling back public charge. Then, in March, a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signed by 150 PIF coalition partners secured the administration’s agreement to stop defending Trump-era public charge litigation in federal court.

On April 25, 2022, the PIF coalition submitted a comment on the Biden Administration’s public charge proposal signed by 1,070 organizations. The Biden public charge regulation was finalized in September 2022 and took effect in December of that year. It largely restores the public charge policy in effect from the 1990s through 2019.

LIFT the BAR

Since the mid-1990s, the “five-year bar” has denied lawfully present immigrant families access to critical health and social services. Reversing the five-year bar and restoring safety net eligibility for people in immigrant families is a top PIF priority. Learn more about the LIFT the BAR Act.