The Biden Administration has proposed a new rule around the controversial immigration policy of “public charge,” and advocates want to ensure it avoids the chilling effects and disparate impacts on Black and Brown immigrants associated with the Trump era rule.

Trump’s “public charge” rule denied immigration status through the application of a wealth test that discriminated against lower-income immigrants. As intended, the rules had a chilling effect on the use of benefits in immigrant communities, creating fear that applying for public benefits—from food support to rental assistance—would lead to the denial of immigration relief and even deportation.

The Legal Aid Society has provided comments on the Biden administration’s new proposed rule, including the new rule’s more narrow and historically accurate definition of what would qualify for the designation of “public charge,” noting that the “test was never designed to prevent immigration of low- and moderate-income families who may at some point need access to public programs to overcome temporary setbacks.”

The organization recommends that Biden’s Department of Homeland Security craft a final rule that maximally averts discrimination based on race, disability, and gender and alleviates the fears faced by immigrants applying for public benefits.

Susan Welber, an attorney with Legal Aid’s Civil Law Reform Unit, sees many improvements in the new proposed law, but wants to be sure that the final rule avoids the harms caused by the Trump rule. “To best mitigate the chilling effect and discriminatory application based on race, disability, and gender, the new rule must exclude consideration of State and local cash benefits and long-term institutional care at government expense,” Welber said.