The Trump administration on Thursday issued sweeping new rules barring illegal immigrants from a host of federal welfare benefits, including food stamps, Title X family planning funds, homelessness assistance, and substance abuse treatment funds. 

Several Cabinet departments, including the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, were involved in drafting the regulation, which reinterprets the 1996 welfare reform legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The new regulation rescinds a 1998 interpretation of the phrase “federal public benefit” that allowed illegal immigrants to take part in public health assistance programs.