Fearing deportation, immigrant parents are now canceling their U.S. citizen kids' food assistance

U.S. citizen kids eligible for food assistance programs may be going hungry because their immigrant parents have canceled their enrollment out of fear of falling onto the radar of Donald Trump’s deportation force:

Officials at Manna Food Center in Montgomery County, Md., report that about 20 percent of the 561 families they have helped apply for food stamps, or SNAP benefits, in the past few months have asked that their cases be closed.

Maria Chavez, an outreach worker for Manna, says her immigrant clients are scared, especially if they're unauthorized parents getting SNAP benefits for their eligible American children.

"They say, 'I want to close my food stamp.' And I say, 'Why you want to close it?' They say, 'Well, because I am afraid that something [will] happen to me or they [will] deport me,' " says Chavez.

Jim Wengler, director of benefits access at Hunger Free New York City, says fewer immigrants have also been showing up recently at the 20 sites his group serves around the city. And he says some noncitizens — even those in the country legally — want all of their government benefits canceled, including Medicaid.

“Which is really frightening because these are families that are often working minimum-wage jobs, trying to raise children, trying to do the right thing, and with the help of these benefits are getting by. But without them, [they] will be in a really desperate situation," Wengler says.

No matter what Trump or anyone from Breitbart tries to tell you, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for public assistance. However, their U.S. citizens kids are, just like any other citizen of this country. But fear has been a feature, not a bug, of Trump’s campaign and administration, and now undocumented parents—even parents with legal status—are making a horrific decision between their kids going hungry or possibly getting torn apart. This is how Trump wants to make America great again?