Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration's Public Charge Rule

USA Today reports that six local governments led by New York City filed suit today to block the Trump administration's expansion of the public charge rule, "arguing the new policy could jeopardize immigrants’ green-card applications for using health care, food, housing and education benefits and frighten families away from assistance for which they are legally eligible."

The new rule is set to take effect on September 18.

New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, California, Seattle and King County, Washington filed the suit.

Here is a portion of the City of New York's press release:

"Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani announced that New York City, alongside the City of Chicago, the City and County of San Francisco, the County of Santa Clara, the City of Seattle, King County, Washington and the Public Rights Project, filed a lawsuitopens in a new tab challenging the federal government’s new public charge rule.   

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, comes alongside a separate legal challenge led by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. New York is being joined by states, cities, counties and the Public Rights Project across the country in challenging the federal government’s attempt to deny green cards and visas to immigrants based on their use of means-tested, or income-based, local, state, and federal public benefits, without clear definitions or meaningful guardrails. The rule is the latest in the federal government’s relentless assault on immigrant families and their ability to live and work in the cities they call home.    
   
“The new public charge rule seeks to push immigrant families away from the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades. New Yorkers will be afraid to see a doctor or ask for help they are legally entitled to. That fear will not stop at the families that the federal government is targeting. Families who remain fully eligible for benefits will feel a chilling effect, and all New Yorkers will pay for it,” said Mayor Mamdani. “New York City is proud to lead a coalition of cities and counties — Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Seattle, King County and the Public Rights Project — standing firmly against this cruel and unlawful rule. Our immigrant communities are not a burden. They are the people who make New York City and country great. We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure they can continue to live here with dignity and without fear.”   
   
In its lawsuit, the coalition argues that the new public charge rule sweeps aside more than a century of settled law, as well as decades of federal guidance establishing clear limits on how public charge determinations can be made. Instead, the new rule dramatically and unlawfully expands the government’s authority to consider an immigrant’s use of public benefits, allowing the federal government to consider virtually any means-tested or income-based public benefits while inviting officers to make decisions that are inconsistent and discriminatory."

Here is the state of California Attorney General's press release.