The Trump administration’s plan to deny legal status and work permits to noncitizens who accept public benefits, like food stamps and Medicaid, got a chilly reception Wednesday from a federal judge in Oakland, who indicated she was likely to stop it from taking effect in California and several other states.
At issue is the meaning of a federal law that bars some immigrants from acquiring legal residency, or from entering the country with visas for students, employees or tourists, if they are likely to become a “public charge.” That term, under current law, refers to the relatively small number of migrants who receive a certain percentage of their income from government sources, such as welfare or Social Security, or who are getting longterm care at government expense.
Under the new regulation, announced Sept. 21 and scheduled to take effect Oct. 15, anyone who has received food stamps, Medicaid or a low-income housing voucher for a year would be considered a public charge, and those receiving aid for lesser periods could also be put in that category by immigration officials. Low incomes, large families and old age would also be considered negative factors. And noncitizens seeking to enter on visas would be excluded if federal officials decided they were likely to use public benefits.
The change is consistent with long-standing government policy that “public benefits not constitute an incentive to immigration,” Justice Department attorney Ethan Davis said at Wednesday’s nearly threehour hearing.
But U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton said presidential administrations have interpreted the law in the opposite way “for at least 20 years,” under federal immigration guidelines that defined a public charge as someone “primarily” dependent on government benefits. She cited the 1996 federal immigration law, in which congressional Republicans tried, unsuccessfully, to include provisions like those the Trump administration is now proposing.
Hamilton also said the administration had failed to respond properly to the many thousands of critical public comments on the proposed regulation, or to justify its claim that the change would strengthen public health and safety. And she said it would be “no hardship on the government ... to continue to do what it has been doing” under current rules while the court case proceeds.
If she issues an injunction next week, Hamilton said, she will probably limit it to California and the states that joined its lawsuit, Maine, Oregon and Pennsylvania, along with the District of Columbia. She said the plaintiffs in the case — which also include San Francisco, Santa Clara County and a number of immigrant-support groups — had not yet shown why they were entitled to a nationwide injunction. Similar suits are pending in at least four other states.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers said the proposed rules are already harming public health by making immigrants fearful of the consequences of seeking government-funded medical care.
There is “fear and confusion in the communities” and “declines in enrollment” in programs such as Medi-Cal, said San Francisco’s lawyer, Deputy City Attorney Matthew Goldberg. Under the Trump administration’s estimate that 2.5% of households with noncitizens would drop out of benefit programs, Goldberg said, local and state governments would lose many millions of dollars in federal funds and would have to expand their own health care and nutrition programs to fill the gap.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko