Judge says migrant rule ‘repugnant’
President Trump’s plan to deny legal status and work permits to noncitizens who accept public benefits, like food stamps and Medicaid, was halted Friday by federal judges in California and New York — the latter in a ruling that declared the revision “repugnant to the American Dream.”
The Trump administration’s regulation, scheduled to take effect Tuesday, would redefine a longstanding federal law that bars some immigrants from acquiring legal residency if they are a “public charge” or likely to become one.
That term refers to a relatively small number of migrants who get a certain portion of their income from government sources, such as welfare or Social Security, or who receive longterm care at government expense. The new rule would add anyone who has received noncash benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid or a lowincome housing voucher, for at least a year.
Federal officials would be authorized to consider migrants’ acceptance of benefits for shorter periods and other “negative” factors — low income, old age, a large family, or the inability to speak English — to classify them as public charges. Officials could also prevent noncitizens from entering the United States on visas issued to students, employees or tourists if they decide the newcomers were likely to use public benefits.
The administration argued the change was consistent with the established authority to prevent newcomers from becoming an economic burden — a policy that “public benefits not constitute an incentive to immigration,” as Justice Department lawyer Ethan Davis put it at a hearing in Oakland last week.
The judges who ruled Friday saw the law differently, and at least one was noticeably offended.
The new rule “has absolutely no support in the history of U.S. immigration law,” and “is simply a new agency policy of exclusion in search of a justification,” said U.S. District Judge George Daniels of New York, whose injunction blocks the policy change nationwide.
“It is repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility,” Daniels said. “Immigrants have always come to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their posterity. With or without help, most succeed.”
Ruling in a lawsuit by the states of New York, Connecticut, Vermont, along with New York City, Daniels said a nationwide injunction was appropriate because “national immigration policies ... require uniformity” and immigrants should not encounter new federal barriers to legal status when they move from one state to another.
Hours later, in a separate case, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of Oakland also said the proposed rule appeared to conflict with immigration laws, but limited her injunction to the jurisdictions that filed suit — California, Oregon, Maine, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, along with San Francisco and Santa Clara County. She said they had not shown the need for relief outside their borders, although the limitation will have no practical impact as long as Daniels’ broader injunction remains in effect.
Hamilton said the Trump administration’s rule would bar migrants receiving food stamps worth less than 50 cents a day from qualifying for legal status. Referring to the public benefits that would disqualify immigrants from legal residence, she said about onefourth of all naturalborn U.S. citizens receive at least one of those benefits in a year, and 40% receive one or more in their lifetime.