Immigrant Participation in SNAP in a Period of Immigration Policy Changes, 2017-2019

One in seven residents of the United States is foreign-born and one in four children in the U.S. lives with an immigrant parent. Changes to immigration policy made by the Trump administration, particularly the redefinition of the public charge rule, impacted immigrants’ participation in public benefit programs for which they or their children were eligible, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). ACS data indicates that the gap in the use of SNAP benefits between non-citizens and U.S.-born citizens sharply widens since 2016 and accelerates from 2018-2019. A similar pattern has been observed for citizen children from mixed-status families compared to citizen children with only citizen parents. A similar steep decline in the use of SNAP was observed for citizen children from mixed-status families. Looking at changes in the four largest states, New York and California experienced lower disparities between U.S.-born citizens and non-citizens in SNAP use. In Florida, the gaps between U.S.-born citizens and non-citizens widened much more post-2016 compared to the other large states, while in Texas the changes in participation levels remained similar to those of the U.S. overall