The regulation would also consider whether a person has private insurance that covers all of his or her health care costs, again rigging the system against people with disabilities. Private insurers don’t cover community living supports like meal preparation, household care and maintenance, and help with bathing, eating, dressing and other routine activities. For many people with disabilities, Medicaid is the only financing available for those basics , but the public charge regulation would mean that using Medicaid could put immigration status at risk. No one should have to choose between the basic needs of life and living in the United States with loved ones.

Mr. Trump’s assault on the disability community isn’t confined to immigrants. All Americans with disabilities — immigrants and citizens alike — would be harmed by the public charge regulation, because of its consequences for the health care and personal care provider work force. According to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, about one-fourth of direct care workers in America are immigrants. And about 40 percent of all direct care workers meet their own basic needs with help from Medicaid, SNAP or other public programs. If finalized, the public charge regulation will mean fewer people able to provide the care that seniors and people with disabilities need to live full lives and contribute to their communities.

Children would also be hit especially hard by the public charge regulation — again, citizen and immigrant alike. One-fourth of children in America have at least one immigrant parent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Though most are not immigrants themselves — an overwhelming majority were born in the United States — they would suffer the denial of basic needs alongside their parents. Children eat at the same table as their parents, and they sleep under the same roof, so if parents are too afraid to apply for help, their children will be no less hungry and no less homeless.

The proposal also weighs childhood as a “negative factor” because children are not self-sufficient. Since children with disabilities are often judged as incapable of growing into self-sufficient adults, they would be considered a public charge more often than their nondisabled peers.

Fortunately, the proposal has not yet been approved. And those who oppose this attack on American families with immigrants, including people with disabilities, can work together to stop it.