Lawsuits around US seek to block Trump’s public charge rule

Federal judges across the United States are weighing in on a new Trump administration policy scheduled to take effect next week that would deny legal permanent residency to many immigrants over the use of public benefits.

Almost a dozen lawsuits have been filed from New York to California with plaintiffs including states, counties, cities, service providers and immigrants to prevent the “public charge” rule from taking effect on October 15.

A judge in California held a hearing last week, while a judge in New York held one on Monday, and others are scheduled for this week, with the lawsuits asking for preliminary injunctions to keep the rule from being enforced while challenges to its legality are ongoing.

Judges have indicated a willingness to issue rulings before the scheduled start date. 

“I’ve litigated against federal and state agencies over the years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Liz Schott of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which has been tracking the progress of the various lawsuits. 

“It’s a tremendously broad set of players reflecting the huge significance and impact of the rule.”

The rule is an aggressive step by the Trump administration in its efforts to rewrite the nation’s immigration policies with its focus on effectively denying permanent resident status to many immigrants through how it defines a “public charge”.

Currently, documented immigrants seeking to become permanent residents – a step before being eligible to become naturalised citizens – must prove they will not be burdens to the country, or public charges. In practice, this has been understood to mean becoming primarily dependent on cash assistance, income maintenance or government support for long-term institutionalisation.

The Trump administration’s rule would take that further – considering past and current use of a wide range of assistance like Medicaid, food stamps, and housing vouchers that are not currently considered, as well as taking into account factors like the immigrant’s age, employment status and English-language abilities to determine whether they could potentially become public burdens at any point in the future and denying them residency if officials decide the answer is “yes”.

Those changes have outraged immigrants and their advocates, who say there has already been a chilling effect from immigrants who are now scared to ask for help for which they are eligible, for themselves or their relatives – including citizen children, out of fear of what it could mean.

They have also said the rule changes are discriminatory and would have the effect of barring immigrants with lower incomes in favour of those with wealth. The government has said the rule changes would ensure that those gaining residency status are self-sufficient. 

The scheduled enactment next week of the rule comes as the Trump administration on Friday announced another rule, a proclamation effective November 3 that bars immigrants from coming to the US unless they will be covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering or have the financial wherewithal to pay for any medical costs.

In a packed Manhattan courtroom on Monday, US District Judge George Daniels extensively questioned the government’s lawyer, Ethan Davis of the Department of Justice, over the rationale behind the administration’s changing of the rule and the adding of factors that would be considered in determining whether someone could become a public charge.

“You’ve got to give me some rational basis,” he said.

Roughly 544,000 people apply for green cards annually. According to the government, 382,000 are in categories that would make them subject to the new review, according to the government.

Immigrants make up a small portion of those getting public benefits, since many are ineligible to get them due to their immigration status.

For Medicaid, non-citizen immigrants are only 6.5 percent of participants, while more than 87 percent are native-born. For food assistance, immigrants are 8.8 percent of recipients, with over 85 percent of participants being native-born.