Immigration Based on Credit Reports

Back in September, I asked the following question: Should Credit Scores Impact Immigration?

That question was prompted by the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed rule changes regarding inadmissibility on public charge grounds. One proposed change would be to allow USCIS to consider a noncitizen’s likelihood of becoming a public charge may be based on the individual’s “credit history and credit score.”

The development moves immigration vetting into the realm of what can be called “FICO-based migration” after the popular credit scoring product that is used by most U.S. lending institutions.

There are significant problems with utilizing indicia of credit worthiness to evaluate the financial health of noncitizens. For one, many countries around the world handle credit differently than the United States and may not have a credit scoring system at all. Immigrants, who may be financially healthy, may nonetheless not have a developed credit history or score. Another significant problem with the new regulation is that it reifies a credit system that scholars have established as having racial and ethnic biases.

I am going to be spending the summer exploring these ideas in a paper that will examine: (i) the proposed rule and the reasons why the government chose to include credit history and score as new evidence of an old inadmissibility ground: public charge, and (ii) problems with credit scores and history that may affect credit’s ability to be a useful tool for examining public charge inadmissibility. If any readers out there have thoughts about must-read scholarship in this area, please reach out!

-KitJ