The new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Public Charge Final Rule is scheduled to go into effect on Friday, Sept. 18. The law will allow immigration officers to consider uses of public benefits when reviewing certain green card and visa applications.
On Monday, Sept. 14, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Attorney General Letitia James gathered at City Hall with other local officials and advocacy groups. They announced that New York is leading a coalition of cities across the country to sue the federal government for what Mamdani described as “the gross illegality of their new public charge rule and the irreparable damage that it will cause.”
According to Mamdani, up to 4 million people from across the country could be unenrolled from their health care alone, including 1.8 million children. The rate of mortality in communities such as New York City, he said, could increase by over 10 percent in the next five years.
“Make no mistake,” Mamdani said. “This is an undisguised effort to strip New Yorkers of the services they rely on, the public benefits they are entitled to.”
He continued to say that families, including those whose children are U.S. citizens, have begun to forgo SNAP services, Medicaid and affordable housing out of fear. Under the new public charge rule, a noncitizen’s green card application could be at risk because their U.S. citizen child uses state-provided health insurance, according to a press release from the Office of the Attorney General.
Advocates from Make the Road New York and The Legal Aid Society stood behind elected officials in support of their legal action.
“All this does is create cruelty and violence,” said New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams.
“Brooklyn, like New York City and major parts of this country, is very immigrant-heavy,” Williams told BK Reader. He described many Haitian communities in New York as “ghost towns” now, and recalled many residents walking around with papers. The new law, he said, “adds another layer to that.”
At the press conference, Mamdani similarly recalled speaking with workers at a Dominican Barber shop in Harlem. “One of them turned to me and said ‘We all have status and yet few of us are showing up to work.’”
James stated during the announcement that the law violates the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the way the federal government is able to pass new acts. According to the Office of the Attorney General, the act “exceeds the DHS’s statutory authority and departs from the longstanding meaning of the public charge provision established by Congress.”
Mamdani encouraged New York immigrants, regardless of status, to call +1 (800) 354-0365 for further questions about the public charge rule.
