Trump's Anti-Immigrant Policies Are Scaring Eligible Families Away From the Safety Net
NEW YORK CITY—As the evening rush hour peaked, Blanca Palomeque stationed herself by the carts selling roasted corn, tamales, and ice cream at the exit to the 90th Street-Elmhurst Avenue subway stop in Queens. She spotted a woman pushing a baby in a pink stroller and tugging along two school-aged girls with pigtails.
“Excuse me, good afternoon, how are you?” Palomeque said in Spanish. “Do you have food stamps for your children? Here is some information.” She pushed a flyer into the mother’s hand before rushing over to a pregnant woman to speak with her as well. Palomeque repeated this process over and over again until the trains became less crowded, urging mothers and fathers and grandparents to look into their eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid, for themselves, for their children, for a friend, for a neighbor.
Palomeque works for , a nonprofit that provides legal aid, community organizing, and language classes to working-class New Yorkers, many of them immigrants. With Donald Trump in the White House, she told me, the tenor of her outreach has changed. “They ask me questions about food stamps,”
