Donald Trump’s discriminatory “public charge” rule change attacking working immigrant families saw not one, not two, but three defeats in federal courts on Friday, when three federal judges blocked his administration from implementing the Stephen Miller-led decision, which had been set to go into effect this week.
Under the policy, it would become much easier to deny green cards to immigrants who are legally accessing, or might access, public benefits such as food assistance. “With one final blow,” the organization Value Our Families said last month, “the Trump administration has snuffed out Lady Liberty’s torch and ended our nation’s legacy of compassion and welcome.” U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York, the first judge to issue a decision that day blocking the policy change nationwide, appeared to agree with advocates.
"The rule is simply a new agency policy of exclusion in search of a justification," he wrote in his decision. "It is repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility. Immigrants have always come to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their posterity. With or without help, most succeed."
In Washington state, U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson also blocked the rule change nationally, ruling that “the states would be harmed because the Trump regulation would cause residents to abandon health, nutrition and housing programs ‘out of fear or confusion,’” Politico reported. Of course, that was happening even before the rule change was officially proposed.
Late last year, providers across numerous states said they’d seen an increase in immigrant parents pulling their eligible U.S. citizen kids out of the programs. Jennifer Mejias-Martinez of the Shawnee County Health Department in Kansas said she was unable to convince frantic parents to change their minds about pulling their kids from WIC. “It made me very sad,” she said, “and quite frankly upset.”
In a third decision that day that applied to only some states, California U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that Trump officials "acted arbitrarily and capriciously during the legally-required process to implement the changes they propose,” NPR reported. Officials had pushed ahead with the rule change under direct order from an impatient Miller, ignoring the majority of Americans who opposed it during the public comments period.
Hamilton, NPR continued, also “said that the government, in legal briefs, minimized the potential public-health consequences of the proposed rule.” From her ruling: "It made no attempt, whatsoever, to investigate the type or magnitude of harm that would flow from the reality which it admittedly recognized would result—fewer people would be vaccinated.”
At least for now, immigrant families have won in the courts. “The history of our nation is inextricably tied to our immigrant communities,” said New York Attorney General Leticia James in a statement, “and because of today’s decision, so too will be our future.”