Attorney General James Leads Major Challenge to Trump Administration’s Attack on Immigrant Families
NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today led a coalition of 21 other states and the District of Columbia in suing to halt a catastrophic new Trump administration policy that would allow immigration officials to punish immigrants for lawful use of public benefits. Filed alongside a separate lawsuit brought by a coalition of cities led by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Attorney General James’ lawsuit challenges a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “public charge” rule that would give individual immigration officers sweeping discretion to deny green cards based on nearly any use of public benefits. Attorney General James and the coalition are asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) to block this unlawful measure so that New Yorkers do not have to fear that seeking help today could jeopardize their – or their family members’ – immigration status in the future.
“Hardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” said Attorney General James. "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. My office fought this exact policy once before and won, and we are leading the nation to ensure the Trump administration cannot inflict this harm on families again.”
“The new public charge rule seeks to push immigrant families away from the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades. New Yorkers will be afraid to see a doctor or ask for help they are legally entitled to. 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,” said Mayor Mamdani. “New York City is proud to lead a coalition of cities and counties — Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Seattle, and King County — standing firmly against this cruel and unlawful rule. Our immigrant communities are not a burden. They are the people who make New York City and country great. We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure they can continue to live here with dignity and without fear.”
For over 140 years, the United States has defined a "public charge" as someone likely to become primarily dependent on the government for long-term subsistence. In 2022, the federal government issued a rule limiting public charge determinations to cash assistance for income maintenance or long-term institutionalization at government expense. The Trump administration’s new rule, taking effect September 18, would let immigration officers count nearly any public benefit, used for any length of time, against an applicant. The rule also includes benefits legally used by family members, even if the family member is a U.S. citizen.
Under the rule, a noncitizen parent's green card application could be at risk because their U.S. citizen child used state-provided health insurance. Officers could count a child's participation in a school's free lunch program against their noncitizen parent’s application for citizenship. There is no clear limit on which benefits, or how much use, count against an applicant, leaving families to guess which forms of routine, lawful assistance might put their immigration status at risk.
Attorney General James and the coalition assert that the administration has acknowledged, and even celebrated, that the fear and confusion the new rule would create could cause immigrant families, including U.S. citizen children, to disenroll from benefits to which they are legally entitled. The federal government also acknowledged that a previous iteration of a similar rule caused benefit disenrollment rates as high as 35 percent among mixed-status families, and as high as 60 percent among refugees. The DHS itself predicts that this "chilling effect" will cost states $4.05 billion annually in Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding and $1 billion annually in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding nationwide.
The coalition emphasizes that the disruption will not stop with the families who disenroll from public benefits. When people lose access to health coverage, they delay care and turn to emergency rooms instead, straining safety-net hospitals and community health centers, and raising costs for everyone. Schools risk losing automatic certification for free and reduced-price meal programs when SNAP and Medicaid enrollment drops below required thresholds, cutting off meals for eligible students regardless of income or immigration status. Federal Title I education funding, calculated using Medicaid and SNAP enrollment, is also likely to fall, and would be a devastating loss for schools. Reduced participation in SNAP can also harm local economies, draining money from the grocery stores and local businesses that depend on SNAP recipients’ business.
In the lawsuit, the attorneys general note that the states and local governments that administer these programs will bear direct costs, from new communications to staff training to information technology changes needed to manage the disruption. This is on top of the added strain of residents cycling on and off programs out of fear.
Attorney General James and the coalition argue that the new rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act because it is arbitrary and capricious, exceeds DHS’s statutory authority, and departs from the longstanding meaning of the public charge provision established by Congress. When the Trump administration introduced a similar rule in 2020, Attorney General James successfully led a coalition in suing to block the measure, a ruling that was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The coalition is asking a federal judge to declare the 2026 public charge rule unlawful and vacate it, protecting states and their residents from its unlawful harms.
Joining Attorney General James in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, and the governor of Pennsylvania.
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