NJ joins lawsuit challenging new Trump public benefits charge rule

Attorney general says uncertainty over public assistance could cause eligible families to avoid seeking services.

New Jersey has joined a coalition of states suing the Trump administration over a pending rule they say would give federal authorities broad discretion to deny green cards to immigrants who use means-tested public benefits.

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 14 by the attorneys general of 22 states, the District of Columbia and the governor of Pennsylvania, argues that the changes would harm public health, increase the spread of disease, worsen hunger and food insecurity, and strain state budgets.

“The Trump Administration’s public charge rule is cruel and arbitrary,” New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a statement. “It forces immigrant families into an impossible position: fearing to seek help to cover their basic needs, including for healthcare or food, because of the risk that their green card applications might be flagged for rejection by an immigration official.”

Davenport said if the rule is allowed to go into effect, it will harm not just immigrants but also the wider community by undermining public health and increasing costs for everyone.

The attorneys general have asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to vacate the rule, arguing that the Trump administration exceeded its statutory authority by departing from the longstanding meaning of “public charge” established by Congress.

They also argue that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act because the rule is arbitrary and capricious and did not follow the “reasoned decision-making process” the law requires, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit names as defendants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and its director, Joseph Edlow.

The rule will take effect Friday, Sept. 18.

The public charge policy dates to 1882, when Congress first allowed the United States to deny entry to noncitizens who would not be able to support themselves without relying on the government.

During his first White House term, Donald Trump expanded that to include people who used programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, or housing vouchers.

But the Biden administration reversed the rule in 2022 and once again limited the definition of “public charge” to someone who relied primarily on government cash assistance for income maintenance or long-term institutionalization at government expense, according to the lawsuit.

The new rule abandons those standards, as well as the “long-settled understanding of the term ‘public charge’ that Congress ratified,” to bar far more noncitizens from admission, the attorneys general argue in the suit.

Under the new rule, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agents will be able to consider the use of any means-tested public benefit for any length of time when deciding whether to deny a noncitizen admission or a green card, according to the lawsuit. That can include benefits received by a U.S. citizen family member whom the applicant is legally obligated to support, such as a child receiving state-provided health coverage.

The attorneys general say the change could force immigrants to choose between seeking state or federal assistance for which they are eligible or potentially jeopardizing their chances of obtaining a green card.

But the rule’s vagueness will leave families guessing about what kind of assistance might risk their immigration status, Davenport said.

That could include safety-net programs that provide emergency medical treatment, health coverage through programs like the Children’s Health Insurance Program or Medicaid, food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or housing assistance, the attorney general said.

“If the rule is allowed to go into effect and eligible recipients disenroll from these programs, the impact of this draconian change will affect entire communities,” Davenport said. “If eligible people avoid seeking medical care or childhood immunizations to avoid adverse immigration consequences, this may contribute to the wider spread of communicable disease and create worse public health outcomes for everyone.”

The attorneys general added that states could also lose federal funding as immigrants and their family members disenroll from benefits programs.

The Trump administration’s estimates show that disenrollment or forgone enrollment resulting from the rule could reduce federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program payments to states by more than $4 billion annually and federal SNAP funding by more than $1 billion annually.

New Jersey is home to nearly 2.2 million immigrants, who make up almost a quarter of the state’s population, according to the statement.

“Congress never intended for the public charge ground to be weaponized against immigrants and their family members who merely use supplemental or temporary amounts of public assistance to which they are lawfully entitled,” the attorneys general wrote. “Yet that is exactly what defendants now seek to do through the final rule challenged here.”

In a statement Tuesday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson dismissed the suit as an “ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”

“Let’s get this straight, sanctuary states are terrified they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs,” the DHS spokesperson said. “We’re shaking in our boots over this supposedly terrible outcome.”

Despite the department’s assertions, a Congressional Research Service report from 2022 showed that undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most federal benefits such as Medicaid, SNAP, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and most housing assistance programs.