{"id":350664,"date":"2026-09-18T23:22:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350664\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T23:22:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:22:25","slug":"public-charge-rule-lawsuits-ny-states-cities-sue-dhs-over-immigration-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350664\/","title":{"rendered":"Public charge rule lawsuits: NY, states, cities sue DHS over immigration updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) \u2014 Three federal lawsuits filed in Manhattan this week seek to block a federal immigration rule change taking effect Friday, September 18. The new, national U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy lets immigration officers deny green cards and permanent residency to legal immigrants who use (or whose children use) government assistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tReport finds many New York schools exceed lead water limits\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The updated federal regulations change the definition of a \u201cpublic charge.\u201d Since 1882, a public charge meant someone relying mostly on government aid to survive, like welfare or public housing programs.<\/p>\n

Since 2022, the government evaluated green card applicants based only on their use of cash welfare or long-term institutional care. The new directive allows rejecting applicants who\u2019ve taken advantage of any means-tested public benefit, including Medicaid, Pell Grants, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and housing vouchers.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tHochul warns ending TPS endangers NY economy and safety\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Means-tested programs target people whose incomes fall below a certain level, interrogating whether applicants have a true financial need. So, under the rule change, a child getting a free school lunch program would count against the parent\u2019s immigration application, as would the family using the Earned Income Tax Credit on their tax return<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Immigration officers can sometimes let applicants facing a green card denial pay a cash bond to stay in the country. But under the revised regulations, immigrants forfeit that money if they access any means-tested benefit before becoming a citizen on or after September 18.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tIndigenous grandmas, Mark Ruffalo launch 108-mile Women\u2019s Water Walk against proposed Constitution Pipeline\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The policy updates mainly apply to immigrants seeking legal status through family members and green cards. It excludes asylees, refugees, and survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking.<\/p>\n

On September 14, New York Attorney General Letitia James and 21 other states sued the federal government over the public charge rule change, while New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spearheaded a separate lawsuit alongside Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and two West Coast county governments. And on Thursday, the Legal Aid Society, Democracy Forward, and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a third lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on behalf of the nonprofits Make the Road New York, the New York Legal Assistance Group, the Association to Benefit Children, and African Communities Together.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tDOJ sues NY to block in-state tuition for undocumented students\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The lawsuits name DHS, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow as defendants. The plaintiffs want judges to declare their new guidelines unlawful and prevent them from being implemented.<\/p>\n

Arguing that the rule is arbitrary and capricious\u2014and that Edlow and Mullin are exceeding the government\u2019s legal authority\u2014the suits asked the courts to vacate the updated rule. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, the assorted plaintiffs claim the rule illegally penalizes working families for accepting benefits that Congress had already awarded, and that were specifically created to help them.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tFederal prosecutors in New York charge five for Russian hit job\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,\u201d James said in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n

That day, Mamdani also warned in a statement that \u201cNew Yorkers will be afraid to see a doctor or ask for help they are legally entitled to\u201d under the public charge rule change.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tInside New York\u2019s multistate lawsuit over sharing TANF data\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Reached for comment Friday, a spokesperson from DHS responded to the lawsuits: \u201cSanctuary states are terrified<\/a> they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs. We\u2019re shaking in our boots over this supposedly terrible outcome. This is the ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals. DHS has heard for months from the trusted journalists at CNN and others that illegal aliens weren\u2019t using these very same welfare programs. So, which is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal officials designed the regulations around the February 2025 \u201cEnding Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders\u201d Executive Order meant to promote self-reliance while preventing taxpayer resources from attracting illegal immigrants. And DHS argued in July that the change actually looks further back than 2022, to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, a 1996 welfare law. It told immigrants to depend on their own abilities and\/or family resources instead of public taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tNew York launches tracker as measles cases hit 57\t<\/a><\/p>\n

DHS had initially projected savings of $8.97 billion. But in July, they estimated that savings on public benefits would actually reach $13.05 billion a year, because 2.1 million people will stop relying on American safety-net programs. That represents $7.71 billion in federal payments and $4.05 billion in state payments nationwide, costing the 22 plaintiff states around $2.2 billion in lost federal matching funds for Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program, according to the AG\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Both the state and city lawsuits contend that immigrants can\u2019t and couldn\u2019t disenroll from annual benefit programs in time for the Friday deadline. Such families are now stuck between losing basic aid and jeopardizing their legal status and residency since some of those programs only allow annual changes. And some programs, like free school meals, are automatically provided to all students, so parents can\u2019t opt out.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tNew data centers could pay $1M per megawatt to towns in New York\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mamdani complaint estimated that 34,000 New Yorkers will lose SNAP, meaning hungry families. And the James complaint said that schools would lose funding for free meals if Medicaid and SNAP enrollments dip below required minimum thresholds. Both suits pointed out that less SNAP spending means millions in lost profits for local grocery stores, farmers markets, and agricultural producers statewide.<\/p>\n

In East Harlem and the South Bronx, the Association to Benefit Children claimed in its lawsuit that parents are already mulling whether to pull their kids from Early Head Start classrooms and mental health clinics. The nonprofit warned that losing Medicaid will drain healthcare revenues and deprive toddlers of developmental screenings. NYC\u2019s Public Schools estimated in the city\u2019s lawsuit that over 1,000 kids will withdraw from free 3-K, Pre-K, and infant-toddler programs.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tNew York expands energy discounts to middle-class families\t<\/a><\/p>\n

And indeed, that lawsuit claimed that 16,000 New Yorkers will lose health insurance, costing the public NYC Health + Hospitals network tens of millions as sick patients avoid routine doctor visits. According to the state lawsuit, losing health coverage means delayed care and more emergency room visits. That uncompensated care stresses hospitals and translates to spiking medical costs across the board.<\/p>\n

According to the Friday lawsuit from Legal Aid, the public charge change unfairly punishes New Yorkers for the state\u2019s high cost of living. For example, they claim that a working family of four in NYC making up to $135,680 a year\u2014more than four times the federal poverty line\u2014still qualifies for Section 8 rental vouchers. But under the new rules, an immigrant parent working full-time wouldn\u2019t get a green card if their household accesses any means-tested aid on or after September 18, including local municipal or state-funded housing subsidies to pay rent.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tNY removes Regents exams as graduation requirement for class of 2028\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The city lawsuit argued that the federal government\u2019s August \u201cPolicy Alert\u201d for immigration officers gives individual officers too much power to make arbitrary decisions or discriminate against legal immigrants. While that 99-page guide tells officers to consider any \u201cmeans-tested\u201d benefits an immigrant uses, the lawsuit claimed that it didn\u2019t define means testing or identify any specific benefits.<\/p>\n

In its July Final Rule, DHS conceded that changing the policy creates a chilling effect, with scared noncitizens and their citizen children disenrolling from health and nutrition programs en masse. The department also acknowledged at the time that limiting public benefits increases poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, and disease.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tState, federal lawmakers respond to foiled terror plot at New York State Capitol\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Take a look at the lawsuits below. Here\u2019s the latest, from Thursday:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the lawsuit led by the attorney general:<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the lawsuit out of New York City:<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tAdvocates talk food, hunger, benefits with Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) \u2014 Three federal lawsuits filed in Manhattan this week seek to block a federal immigration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-350664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350664","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=350664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}