States, cities sue over Trump rule seeking to deny green cards to
immigrants using public benefits
[September 15, 2026]
By PHILIP MARCELO
NEW YORK (AP) — Democratic-led states and cities filed lawsuits Monday
challenging a federal rule set to begin Friday that they say gives
President Donald Trump’s administration broad discretion to deny green
cards to immigrants who rely on public assistance for food, healthcare,
housing and other basic needs.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading a coalition of
21 other states in one of the suits, said the rule would force needy
immigrant families to choose between seeking assistance and seeking
legal status in the country. California, Colorado, Hawaii,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin are among the
states involved in the legal challenge.
“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,” she said Monday at a news conference in City
Hall alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and immigrant
advocates.
Mamdani filed a separate suit with leaders of other U.S. cities,
including Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle. He said the rule would
have a “chilling effect” not just on immigrants seeking legal status but
other residents of the nation’s largest city.
“The new public charge rule seeks to push immigrant families away from
the programs that have kept people fed and healthy for decades,” the
mayor said. “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.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is named in the
lawsuits, dismissed the dire warnings.
“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 agency said
in a statement. “We’re shaking in our boots over this supposedly
terrible outcome.”
The lawsuits challenge DHS’s plan to revive a “public charge” rule the
Republican president originally imposed during his first term, only to
have it reversed under his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden.
The lawsuits, which were both filed in federal court in Manhattan, argue
the new rule is “arbitrary and capricious,” exceeds the DHS’s statutory
authority, and departs from the longstanding meaning of the federal
government’s public charge provision.
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New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during an
announcement of a lawsuit filed by New York and 21 other states
challenging the federal government's new public charge rule, on
Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Specifically, James said, the rule unlawfully gives immigration
officials broad discretion to consider a wide range of public
benefits when making their decisions on immigrants seeking legal
status in the country.
She said the rule lets immigration officers count nearly any public
benefit, used for any length of time, against a green card applicant
-- even if it’s a U.S. citizen family member who is taking advantage
of the benefit.
That means a parent’s green card application could be at risk simply
because their U.S. citizen child used state-provided health
insurance or participated in a school’s free lunch program, James
said.
“This new rule sweeps away more than a century of settled law to
unlawfully broaden the definition of ‘public charge’ in a way that
Congress never intended,” added Steve Banks, the city’s corporation
counsel.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the rule a “cruel
policy.”
Federal law already requires those seeking permanent residency or
legal status to demonstrate they will not rely on public benefits.
The new rule does not specify the programs that could be taken into
account. It simply says officers, “using good judgment and
discretion,” will make “individualized, fact-specific public charge
inadmissible determinations, based on a totality of the alien’s
circumstances.”
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Associated Press reporters Sophie Austin in Sacramento, Calif. and
Cybele Mayes-Osterman in Chicago contributed to this story.
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