New York sues Trump administration over “public charge” rule that would deny green cards to immigrants.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a lawsuit against Trump’s plan to deny green cards to immigrants who receive public aid.
New York leads a coalition against the Trump Administration’s new strategy on immigration, which has also been joined by the cities of Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, as well as the Californian county of Santa Clara, King County, in the state of Washington, and the organization Public Rights Project.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks to stop the reform of the public charge rule, which is scheduled to take effect this Friday.
“We do not want to obtain a temporary injunction, we want to completely stop the implementation of this rule,” Mamdani said in a press conference at the town hall with the Attorney General of the state of New York, Letitia James, who is leading another lawsuit against the same rule.
The new rule, a rollback from the framework established by former President Joe Biden, will give immigration officials greater discretion to deny permanent residence permits to immigrants who are highly likely to rely primarily on government financial aid in the future.
“Let there be no doubt: this is a blatant attempt to deprive New Yorkers of the services they depend on and the public benefits to which they are entitled,” the mayor said.
The mayor warned that some families “have already begun to give up essential services” for fear that in the future they could be used to deny them permission to enter the country: “It is estimated that up to 4 million people throughout the country could unsubscribe from their health insurance alone, including 1.8 million children.”
Mayor Mamdani advanced that this could raise the premature mortality rate among immigrant communities in New York by “up to 10.6%” in the next five years.
Some of the programs that would be affected include Medicaid, SNAP food stamps or affordable housing assistance.
“We are going to exhaust all the resources we have to take care of New Yorkers,” concluded Mamdani, who described the Trump Government’s position as “cruel.”
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Mayor Mamdani Holds Press Conference on a Major Immigration Announcement with New York Attorney General Letitia James— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) September 14, 2026