(CNN) Rep. Norma Torres slammed President Donald Trump over his administration's new regulation that could slash the number of legal immigrants in the US, suggesting it was "an excuse to rid the country of people who look like me."

In an interview with CNN on Monday, the California Democrat suggested that the policy targets people of color and punishes legal immigrants for "taking some assistance to make ends meet." The new rule could allow the government to turn down green card holders and visa applicants if they have low incomes or little education, and have used public benefits like most forms of Medicaid, food stamps and housing vouchers.

"Rather than looking at them through the lens of this is what every other citizen in the country is suffering because we have not raised the federal minimum wage in a long time, and because the cost of doing business keeps rising, and everything is costing more -- rather than looking at it through that lens, he wants to punish them," Torres said.

"But punishing them is just an excuse to rid the country of people who look like me," she said. Torres immigrated to the US from Guatemala as a child and is the only Central American member of Congress.

Torres said the policy was "simply not sustainable."

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