Republicans have lost another effort attempting to bring back from the dead the previous administration’s discriminatory “public charge” rule. The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an effort by Texas and more than a dozen other GOP states to revive the rule, which sought to make it harder for lower income families to gain permanent status.
This second loss for Republicans since last year might mean the final nail in the coffin when it comes to this particular effort.
RELATED STORY: Biden administration officially reverses discriminatory wealth test
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The high court had already dismissed a similar appeal from other Republican states last year. At that time, we noted that the effort to bring back the policy was dead, at least for the time being. We know that Republicans have relentlessly used the right-wing courts to sabotage any policy changes by the Biden administration that aren’t cruel to immigrant families.
But following Monday’s news that the court would not take up this latest effort, which was led by very corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton, experts said justices have ended this particular quest for good. “SCOTUS has, once and for all, ended any chance GOP states had of reviving the long-dead Trump administration ‘public charge’ rule,” commented American Immigration Council Policy Director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.
The effort dismissed by justices last year had been led by now-former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and sought to take up defense of the discriminatory policy in court after the incoming Biden administration said it wouldn’t defend it anymore. Litigants that had challenged the previous administration said the Biden administration’s withdrawal cleared the way “at last for this unlawful rule to no longer be enforced.”
Brnovich, by the way, would go on to look the other way as Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey illegally dumped shipping containers on federal lands and called it a “wall.” Ducey, who is now also out of office, agreed to remove them only after facing a lawsuit from the federal government. The illegal project cost Arizona taxpayers nearly $100 million, and it’s going cost $76 million to now bring it all down. But “law and order.”
Back to the public charge news. In September, the Biden administration took a major step forward in championing immigrant families by issuing the final rule that officially reversed the previous administration’s public charge stance. The Biden administration’s rule codified “the historical understanding of a ‘public charge’ that had been in place for decades,” officials said. That rule went into effect late last month.
“Immigrant families can now access life-saving health care, food, and housing assistance for which they are eligible without fear that they will lose the chance to obtain lawful permanent residence, because the actions today mean that the harmful Trump public charge rule will again be blocked,” advocacy groups said in September. “The Trump rule erected an invisible wall in the form of a wealth test that discriminated against people on the basis of race as a condition for regularizing their immigration status.”
So … is the GOP attempt here truly, truly over? Can eligible immigrants access services to which they’re legally entitled, like nutrition programs for their U.S. citizen children, without fear it’ll be used against them? The Biden administration has said yes. But knowing the extent to which Republicans go to make immigrants and their families as miserable as possible, part of me is waiting to see which maneuver, and which right-wing judge, they might try next.
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