Democratic-led states and cities filed lawsuits Monday challenging a federal rule set to begin Friday that they say gives President Donald Trump\u2019s administration broad discretion to deny green cards to immigrants who rely on public assistance for food, healthcare, housing and other basic needs.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading a coalition of 21 other states in one of the suits, said the rule would force needy immigrant families to choose between seeking assistance and seeking legal status in the country. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin are among the states involved in the legal challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis rule preys on that fear and counts on families forfeiting the food assistance, health care coverage, and other public benefits to which they are legally entitled,\u201d she said Monday at a news conference in City Hall alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani and immigrant advocates.<\/p>\n
Mamdani filed a separate suit with leaders of other U.S. cities, including Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. He said the rule would have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d not just on immigrants seeking legal status but other residents of the nation\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new public charge rule seeks to push immigrant families away from the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cNew 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is named in the lawsuits, dismissed the dire warnings.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get this straight, sanctuary states are terrified they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs,\u201d the agency said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re shaking in our boots over this supposedly terrible outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuits challenge DHS\u2019s plan to revive a \u201cpublic charge\u201d rule the Republican president originally imposed during his first term, only to have it reversed under his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
The lawsuits, which were both filed in federal court in Manhattan, argue the new rule is \u201carbitrary and capricious,\u201d exceeds the DHS\u2019s statutory authority, and departs from the longstanding meaning of the federal government\u2019s public charge provision.<\/p>\n
Specifically, James said, the rule unlawfully gives immigration officials broad discretion to consider a wide range of public benefits when making their decisions on immigrants seeking legal status in the country.<\/p>\n
She said the rule lets immigration officers count nearly any public benefit, used for any length of time, against a green card applicant — even if it\u2019s a U.S. citizen family member who is taking advantage of the benefit.<\/p>\n
That means a parent\u2019s green card application could be at risk simply because their U.S. citizen child used state-provided health insurance or participated in a school\u2019s free lunch program, James said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis new rule sweeps away more than a century of settled law to unlawfully broaden the definition of \u2018public charge\u2019 in a way that Congress never intended,\u201d added Steve Banks, the city\u2019s corporation counsel.<\/p>\n
Federal law already requires those seeking permanent residency or legal status to demonstrate they will not rely on public benefits.<\/p>\n
The new rule does not specify the programs that could be taken into account. It simply says officers, \u201cusing good judgment and discretion,\u201d will make \u201cindividualized, fact-specific public charge inadmissible determinations, based on a totality of the alien\u2019s circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s office says New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status, can call the MOIA\u2019s Immigration Legal Support Hotline at 1-800-354-0365 or 311 and say \u201cImmigration Legal\u201d to get connected to free, safe and confidential immigration legal assistance in their preferred language.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press wire services contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic-led states and cities filed lawsuits Monday challenging a federal rule set to begin Friday that they say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-347236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}