On August 18, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published updated guidance to a final rule issued in July clarifying how the agency will decide whether a green card applicant is likely to become a public charge, meaning someone immigration officials believe will depend mainly on government support. That finding is grounds for inadmissibility, or refusal, under the Immigration and Nationality Act. USCIS will begin to apply this rule under the new guidance on September 18. LeadingAge urged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not to take this action in a letter to then Secretary Kristi Noem in December of 2025.

The final rule and the guidance may have implications not only for foreign-born older adults and the workforce that supports them but also aging services and senior housing providers, whose residents may now choose to forego public assistance that would allow them to access services for which they qualify out of fear of a public charge finding.

Under the new guidance, USCIS will base public charge inadmissibility determinations on the totality of the applicant’s circumstances, which includes consideration of their receipt of means-tested public benefits and other data relevant to their self-sufficiency. The guidance clarifies that means-tested benefits may now include cash assistance, public or assisted housing, financial aid for post-secondary education, food assistance, and government-funded health coverage. The prior rule generally kept those noncash benefits out of the analysis; this rule gives immigration officers more discretion to consider them alongside the person’s overall financial and personal circumstances. Earned benefits such as Social Security and Medicare or unemployment insurance are excluded from public charge consideration.

While USCIS’s primary focus is on the receipt of means-tested benefits by the applicant or beneficiary, the guidance allows officers to consider receipt of means-tested public benefits by members of an applicant’s household during the application process.  This will be relevant to the public charge inadmissibility determination when: 1) the means-tested public benefits received by the household member are the applicant’s source of financial support; or 2) the applicant is legally obligated to support the household member who is receiving the means-tested public benefit.  For example- consider a foreign-born nurse working part-time at a skilled nursing facility as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) while completing her licensure requirements, sponsored for her green card by her U.S. citizen husband via Form I-864. When he loses his job, the couple applies for unemployment insurance and SNAP benefits to stay afloat. Under the new guidance, USCIS can look past the I-864 and scrutinize the sponsor’s own finances — meaning the family’s SNAP receipt, combined with his financial instability and her modest income, could factor into a public charge determination.

USCIS further states that officers may consider evidence in the record that an applicant applied for, or was approved or certified to receive, a means-tested public benefit on or after the guidance’s effective date. Although an application or approval is not itself “receipt” of a benefit, USCIS says it may be relevant evidence of the applicant’s likelihood of needing public benefits in the future. Actual receipt of means-tested benefits may also be considered in the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis, including the benefit’s amount, duration, and recency.

The new guidance also gives USCIS more room to scrutinize an applicant’s financial sponsor. Many applicants have a sponsor who signs Form I-864, a legal promise to provide the applicant with a minimum level of financial support. In the past, that signed form largely spoke for itself. Now, because USCIS is concerned that some sponsors don’t follow through on this promise, officers can look past the form itself and dig into the sponsor’s own finances,  including whether the sponsor has received means-tested public benefits, as part of deciding whether the applicant is likely to become a public charge.

While the guidance does provide clarity in certain areas that the final rule did not address, we continue to remain concerned about the impact that these changes will have on older adults who feel compelled to preserve their immigration status at the expense of obtaining critical health and housing services.