Dive Brief:
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A coalition of cities and counties on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its new “public charge” rule that expands the criteria immigration agents can use to deny green cards and visas based on immigrants’ use of local, state or federal public benefits.
- Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a separate lawsuit challenging the rule. That lawsuit alleges the local governments that administer public benefit programs will bear direct costs, including new communications, staff training and information technology changes, needed to manage the rule change.
- “Sanctuary states are terrified they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email to Smart Cities Dive Monday. “DHS has heard for months from the trusted journalists at CNN and others that illegal aliens weren’t using these very same welfare programs. So, which is it?”
Dive Insight:
DHS in July rescinded the 2022 public charge ground of inadmissibility regulations, which reflected “an understanding that the use of supplemental public benefits can provide support on the journey to a better life and is not a reliable predictor of future dependence,” according to the cities’ lawsuit. A month later, DHS released a new version of its policy manual directing that “an alien is likely at any time to become a public charge” if they are “likely at any time to depend on means-tested public benefits,” the lawsuit states.
The new public charge rule is expected to go into effect Sept. 18.
The cities allege the regulation and rule changes “invite arbitrary, inconsistent, and discriminatory decision-making” and violate the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing “a dramatic change to the well-established understanding of ‘public charge’ in a manner that conflicts with the term’s plain meaning, congressional intent, statutory context, longstanding administrative interpretation, and case law.”
The lawsuit coalition includes Chicago; King County, Washington; New York City; Santa Clara County, California; the city and county of San Francisco; and Seattle. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement that the new rule “seeks to push immigrant families away from the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades” and will scare New Yorkers away from seeing doctors and receiving other benefits they’re legally entitled to. “Families who remain fully eligible for benefits will feel a chilling effect, and all New Yorkers will pay for it,” he said.
“Chicago will not stand by while the federal government forces immigrant families to choose between putting food on the table, taking their children to the doctor, or protecting their ability to remain in this country,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. “This rule is not only cruel, it is unlawful, and it threatens the health and safety of our entire city.”
The attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania, joined the states’ lawsuit, which was also filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
