The proclamation said that immigrants will be barred from entering the country unless they are to be covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering or have enough financial resources to pay for any medical costs.
US President Donald Trump (Photo: AFP)
US President Donald Trump on Friday signed a proclamation that bars legal immigration who have health coverage or cannot prove that they can pay for healthcare costs within 30 days of their arrival in the country.
The new rule, which comes into force on 3 November, will be applied to people seeking immigrant visas, not those in the US already. It does not apply to those seeking asylum seekers, refugees or children.
But it would apply to the spouses and parents of US citizens. That could have an impact on families who are trying to bring their parents to the US.
Advertisement
The proclamation said that immigrants will be barred from entering the country unless they are to be covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering or have enough financial resources to pay for any medical costs.
Earlier in August, the US government issued a rule that would deny permanent residence to the legal immigrants in the country who were considered to be a “public charge” by the authorities.
Under the new rule, “a public charge in now defined as an individual who receives one or more designated public benefits for more than 12 months in the aggregate within any 36 months”.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration think tank, 57% of US immigrants had private health insurance in 2017, compared with 69% of US-born, and 30% had public health insurance coverage, compared with 36% of US-born.
Advertisement
