More than 20 Democratic-led states and several cities are announcing lawsuits Monday to stop the Trump administration from considering immigrants’ use of public benefits when deciding whether they qualify for permanent legal status.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading 20 states, the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in one legal challenge. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is leading Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and two counties, Santa Clara County in California and King County in Washington, in a separate case.
In July, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule, set to go into effect on Sept. 18, that greatly widened the scope of what officers could consider when looking at public charge. Now, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers have few guardrails about what benefits they can consider, including an applicant’s health or prior use of public assistance.
“Hardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” James wrote in a statement. “This 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.”
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The DHS rule reverses a Biden-era policy that had restricted the consideration of public charge to consider only cash welfare.
President Donald Trump tried to make similar changes to public charge during his first term, before a group of Democratic states sued over the changes. James filed a lawsuit in conjunction with New York City, Connecticut and Vermont at that time as well, which succeeded in blocking the enactment of the rule.
Both of the new lawsuits claim that the rule would cause undue hardship and burden to state and local governments, and that DHS wants to exceed the agency’s authority.
“The new public charge rule seeks to push immigrant families away from the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades,” Mamdani said in a statement. “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.”
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