The Legal Aid Society last week filed a lawsuit against a new Trump administration rule that prevents certain people who apply for permanent residence through a relative from accessing a wide range of public benefits. The lawsuit joins two others filed this week by New York state and New York City, creating a series of three separate lawsuits against the policy change.
The three entities went to court this week to ask that the Trump administration’s new policy, which went into effect on September 18, be overturned. Under the new rule, a person who applies for a green card through a family member may be considered a “public charge” and therefore face a bar from obtaining permanent residency if she or her minor children receive certain means-tested public benefits, including SNAP, housing assistance, health insurance, tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, and Pell Grants for college students.
This represents a significant change from how the public charge assessment was previously applied. Historically, the rule primarily focused on people considered dependent on the government for their livelihood, such as those receiving cash assistance or those living in long-term care facilities, such as a nursing home, the cost of which was covered by Medicaid.
Organizations and governments challenging the new rule argue that it is illegal because it contradicts the Immigration and Nationality Act and more than a century of policies that require the government to jointly evaluate factors such as a person’s age, health, family situation, resources and financial situation, as well as education and skills. They also argue that the measure will harm immigrant communities by depriving them of public assistance or discouraging them from applying for benefits to which they are entitled. According to the plaintiffs, receiving these types of supplemental benefits had never automatically made a person a “public charge.”
“None of these benefits, used by both citizens and non-citizens to build financial security and independence, are related to the type of prolonged homelessness that Congress recognizes as grounds for considering a person a public charge,” Legal Aid said in a statement. “Expanding the public charge ground of inadmissibility…may have adverse, life-changing consequences for millions of law-abiding noncitizen residents, particularly those with low incomes and limited resources, who want to keep their families together in the United States.”
The US Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
Why were three lawsuits filed against Trump?
The fact that each entity filed its own lawsuit, rather than filing a joint lawsuit, was intentional and, according to attorneys representing the plaintiffs, has significance for the cases.
Attorneys noted that the state, city and immigrant rights organizations represented by Legal Aid experience different types of harm as a result of the rule change and bring different perspectives that they believe are important for judges to evaluate separately.
“All three lawsuits are very important because this rule is radical and seeks to penalize immigrants and their family members for using government supports that have nothing to do with their long-term prospects or their ability to achieve and maintain financial independence,” Law Susan Welber, an attorney at Legal Aid, told our sister publication, amNewYork. “It’s really important to present to the court a full view of how harmful this rule is and how it affects people, with all of those perspectives in individual, separate lawsuits.”
Although the state, city and Legal Aid present similar arguments about why they consider the rule illegal, each explains in court differently how the measure affects their own institutions and the immigrants they serve.
“The rule is going to have, and has already begun to have, such a negative effect on the organizations we represent that are made up of working families, many of them immigrants, or that serve children from immigrant families or whose parents are immigrants,” Welber said. “The rule will affect their ability to help people get a green card… (and) will affect their ability to provide mental health services to children, especially if the parents of those children believe they cannot keep their children receiving Medicaid.”
“It’s going to affect their immigration goals; it’s going to affect the amount of time and complexity of advising clients on basic issues,” he continued. “Receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit or a Pell Grant that pays for college, or a Child Tax Credit, will affect your ability to get a green card at some point in the future. This rule really affects our clients, these nonprofits, in a very direct way that hits at the heart of what they do and what they are trying to accomplish.”
Welber noted that people should know that if they submitted a green card application through a family member before September 18 — or if they are applying for residency through a different route — the rule change is probably “not legally relevant” to their immigration options and access to public benefits.
“The thing to understand about this new public charge rule is that it is designed to scare people about using public benefits,” Welber said. “It actually only applies to a relatively small group of immigrants: those people who are looking to get a green card through a family member. There are many ways to get a green card, but only people who get one through a family member are subject to the public charge rule.”
Welber said the most important thing for people concerned about the new rule is to talk to their immigration attorney or seek legal advice through the New York Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs before making any decision to stop receiving public benefits or not apply for them.
Legal Aid itself warns that many people are not subject to the public charge rule and recommends first determining whether the measure applies to them before making decisions about public benefits.
