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White House to Deny Green Cards to Immigrants on Public Benefits

The Trump Administration's new regulation would affect legal immigrants on welfare programs such as food stamps.

A new rule proposed over the weekend by the Trump Administration seeks to limit green cards to those who legally use food stamps, Medicaid, and other public benefits.

Pro-immigrant groups quickly condemned the regulation, saying that it creates additional barriers for legal immigrants in the U.S.

The National Immigration Law Center's executive director Marielena Hincapié said in a statement: "The Trump administration is using this regulatory backdoor approach because it attempted to enact its draconian agenda of restricting legal immigration through Congress — and failed. This rule change is radical and extreme, and it leaves the door wide open for potential abuse. All of us, regardless of where we were born, suffer when immigrants are penalized for trying to have their basic needs met."

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Where in the U.S. Can You Actually Survive on Minimum Wage?

"Getting by" is a notably nebulous terms and it's in stark contrast to a "livable wage."

"What you don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour," writes Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, "is that what you're really selling is your life." The going hourly rate for your life is? $7.25 if you go by the federal minimum wage, which hasn't been raised since 2009. More than half of states mandate a higher minimum wage than the federal level. A minimum wage job will fetch you $10 an hour in Maine; $10.50 in California; and $12.50 in Washington, D.C. But where is that wage enough to get by?

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