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Public Reason, Public Comments, and Public Charge: A Case Study in Moral & Practical Reasoning in Federal Rulemaking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2022

Rachel Fabi  and
Lauren Zahn
Rachel Fabi
Affiliation:
SUNY UPSTATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY, SYRACUSE, NY, USA
Lauren Zahn
Affiliation:
SUNY UPSTATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY, SYRACUSE, NY, USA
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Abstract

The “public charge” rule is a long-standing immigration policy that seeks to determine the likelihood that a prospective immigrant will become dependent on the government for subsistence. When the Trump administration sought to expand the criteria that would count against an applicant for permanent residency to include public benefits historically excluded from the calculation, thousands of commenters wrote to oppose or support the proposed changes. This paper explores the moral and practical reasons commenters provided for their position on the public charge rule and considers the value of the public comment process for immigration, health, and social policy.

Keywords

Public ChargeDeservingnessSelf-SufficiencyCitizenshipRulemaking
Type
Independent Articles
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 50 , Issue 2: Commercial Speech and Commercial Determinants of Health , Summer 2022 , pp. 322 - 335
Copyright
© 2022 The Author(s)

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