Filed Date: Aug. 21, 2019
Case Ongoing
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This case is one of several brought nationwide by States, counties, and nonprofit organizations challenging the Trump administration's revised, final public charge rule, which expands the types of programs that the federal government will consider in public charge determinations to now also include previously excluded health, nutrition, and housing programs. District court judges from across the countries granted preliminary injunctions enjoining the government from implementing the public charge rule but after multiple Circuit Courts and the Supreme Court issued stays of these injunctions, the public charge rule was implemented by the government on February 24, 2020.
On August 21, 2019, the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, along with the city of New York, filed this suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Plaintiff States sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as well as the acting secretaries of both departments in their official capacity, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The Plaintiff States sought relief to declare the Department of Homeland Security’s final public charge rule (the Rule) vacated due to violations of the APA and unconstitutional due to violations of the Equal Protection Clause. The Plaintiff States also sought to preliminarily and permanently enjoin the Rule from being enforced.
On August 14, 2019, the DHS published a revised, final public charge rule, which defined personal circumstances that affect the ability of individuals and their families to successfully enter the U.S. or acquire legal permanent resident status (i.e., get a green card). The final rule increased the types of programs that the federal government would consider in public charge determinations to also include previously excluded health, nutrition, and housing programs. The Immigration and Nationality Act provides that if an immigration officer finds that a person seeking a visa is likely to become a public charge, that person is “inadmissible.” Thus, under the proposed Rule, an immigrant who uses non-cash benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid, or is deemed likely to receive them in the future, may be found more likely to be a public charge and inadmissible for purposes of a visa or green card application. The Plaintiff States asserted that this Rule would force immigrant families to choose between using these benefits or risk failing to gain permanent resident status.
The Plaintiff States further argued that the Rule causes damage to the health and livelihood of immigrant families by deterring them from using these benefits, thereby undermining the sovereign interests of the Plaintiff States and interfering in the policies designed to support the well-being and civil rights of residents. The Plaintiff States contended that the Rule exceeds the Defendant's jurisdiction and authority under the APA; is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion; and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
On September 9, 2019, the Plaintiff States filed a motion for preliminary injunction and stay pending judicial review, arguing they are likely to suffer irreparable harm absent preliminary relief, that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims made in the complaint, and that preliminary relief is in the public interest. The Rule, unless prohibited, was set to go into effect on October 15, 2019. The Plaintiff States asserted that the Rule should not take effect while the legal action was still pending.
On September 27, 2019, the Defendants filed an opposition to the motion. The Defendants contended that the Rule is a "well-reasoned definition of public charge providing practical guidance to Executive Branch officials making public charge inadmissibility determinations" based on foundational principles of United States immigration law. The Defendants also argued that the Plaintiff States and City did not meet their burden of establishing standing, that they did not show an actual or imminent threat of harm as the result of the Rule. Although the Plaintiff States claimed that enforcement of the Rule would cause irreparable harm, the Defendants argued that those claims are not enough to establish standing. The Defendants further argued that the Motion should be dismissed because the Plaintiff States' substantive claims lack merit and because the Plaintiff States are outside the zone of interests regulated by the APA.
On October 11, 2019, Judge George Daniels granted the motion for preliminary injunction. First, Judge Daniels found that the Plaintiff States had standing, that their claims were ripe for judicial review, and that they were within the zone of interests regulated by the APA. Then, after analyzing the long-standing definition of the term public charge and whether Congress intended to redefine public charge, Judge Daniels found that the Plaintiff States sufficiently alleged that the Rule exceeds statutory authority and is contrary to law. Judge Daniels also ruled that the Plaintiff States sufficiently demonstrated that the rule is arbitrary and capricious. Judge Daniels found that the Plaintiff States and "law-abiding citizens who have come to this country to seek a better life" will suffer irreparable harm absent a preliminary injunction. Finally, Judge Daniels ordered that the injunction be applied nationwide, in order to unify national immigration policy and in consideration of nearly two dozen other jurisdictions that have had suits brought challenging the Rule. 408 F.Supp.3d 334.
On October 30, 2019, the Defendants filed an appeal of the order granting preliminary injunction; the Defendants also sought to stay the preliminary injunction.
On December 2, 2019, Judge Daniels denied the Defendants' motion to stay. Judge Daniels reasoned that "to stay the injunction would be inconsistent with this Court's underlying findings of Plaintiffs' likelihood of success on the merits, and of the irreparable injury that Plaintiffs, noncitizens, and the general public would suffer in the absence of an effective injunction." 2019 WL 6498250.
On January 8, 2020, while the Defendants' appeal was pending, the Second Circuit denied the Defendants' motion for stay pending appeal of the nationwide preliminary injunction. 2020 WL 95815.
On January 13, 2020, the Defendants submitted to Justice Ginsburg of the Supreme Court an application for stay of the preliminary injunction while the appeal is pending in the Second Circuit. Justice Ginsburg referred the application to the Supreme Court on January 27, 2020.
On January 27, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States granted the Defendants' application for stay and thus stayed the District Court’s October 11, 2019 orders granting a nationwide preliminary injunction. In granting the Defendants' application, Justice Gorsuch, writing the opinion for the court, addressed the many suits, injunctions, and stays regarding the Rule occurring across the country and concluded that the "routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions." These nationwide injunctions, Justice Gorsuch reasoned, shared a similar flaw in that "they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case." Justice Gorsuch also found that these nationwide injunctions encouraged gamesmanship and forum shopping, that if a single district court issued a nationwide injunction, "the government’s hope of implementing any new policy could face the long odds of a straight sweep, parlaying a 94-to-0 win in the district courts into a 12-to-0 victory in the courts of appeal." Thus, in granting the Defendants' application for stay and staying the district court's nationwide preliminary injunction, the Supreme Court found the occasion to address its concerns with the proliferation of nationwide injunctions. 140 S.Ct. 599. After the Supreme Court ruling, the Defendants stated that the rule would take effect on February 24, 2020.
Following the Supreme Court's stay of the preliminary injunction and a Ninth Circuit opinion "concluding that the Rule falls well within the Executive Branch’s discretion to interpret and implement the public charge inadmissibility provision in the INA," the Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on February 14, 2020. The Plaintiffs argued that the Defendants were taking "a third bite at the apple" and that because Defendants offered "no new substantive arguments, and this Court has already evaluated and rejected Defendants’ contentions under the more stringent standards governing entry of a preliminary injunction," the motion to dismiss should be denied.
On the same day, the Plaintiffs filed a motion to consolidate this case with Make the Road New York, et al. v. Kenneth Cuccinelli, et al. and State of New York v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Security. The parties argued that the cases met the standard for consolidation as they share many common questions of fact and law and also assert the same constitutional violation and cause of action.
On March 6, 2020, the Plaintiff-States sent a letter to the Defendants urging them "to immediately stop implementation of [the Rule] ... in the wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus." The Plaintiff states asserted that, in the context of a nationwide outbreak of COVID-19, "DHS’s policy of deterring immigrants from using the medical benefits to which they are legally entitled directly undermines and frustrates our public health professionals’ efforts, putting our communities and residents at unnecessary risk."
On April 13, 2020, the Plaintiff States filed a motion in the Supreme Court to temporarily lift or modify the Court's stay of the district court's October 11, 2019 and December 6, 2019 orders. The Plaintiffs' asserted that, while state and local authorities had taken "extraordinary efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 and protect the health and well-being of ... residents," the Rule undermined those efforts by "deterring immigrants from accessing healthcare and public benefits that are essential tools for protecting the public at large . . . ." The Supreme Court denied the motion to temporarily lift or modify the stay on April 24, 2020, but ruled that “[t]his order does not preclude a filing in the District Court as counsel considers appropriate.”
Back in the district court, the Plaintiffs filed a second motion for a preliminary injunction and stay or a temporary restraining order on April 28, 2020. The Plaintiffs argued that immigrants would be deterred from seeking public health benefits out of fear of violating the public charge rule, which would exacerbate the national health crisis. These changed facts, the plaintiffs believed, provided the district court the authority to issue an injunction despite the Supreme Court's previous stay.
On July 29, 2020, the district court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Plaintiffs’ claim that DHS and USCIS lacked the authority to promulgate the Rule, but granted the Plaintiffs’ second motion for a preliminary injunction and enjoined the Defendants from implementing the Rule at any point during the COVID-19 outbreak. 2020 WL 4347264. The Defendants appealed the court’s preliminary injunction order to the Second Circuit on August 3, 2020. On August 12, 2020, the Second Circuit stayed the injunction with respect to all states but the Plaintiff States (Connecticut, New York, and Vermont) until the Second Circuit ruled on the motion to stay. The Second Circuit then stayed the second preliminary injunction altogether on September 11, 2020 while the Second Circuit considered the Defendants’ appeal of the district court’s first preliminary injunction order. 974 F.3d 210.
The Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on October 2, 2020 alleging that DHS and USCIS violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) and the Homeland Security Act (HSA) by implementing the Rule because the Rule was promulgated by an Acting DHS Secretary who was unlawfully serving in his position. As a result, the Plaintiffs argued, DHS’s and USCIS’s implementation of the Rule exceeded the departments’ statutory authority under FVRA and was not in accordance with the law under the APA.
On October 7, 2020, the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s initial preliminary injunction orders, finding that the Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the Rule is contrary to the INA and arbitrary and capricious. 969 F.3d 42. The Defendants petitioned for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court, which was granted on February 22, 2021.
Following their Second Circuit win, the Plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment in district court on October 27, 2020, arguing that the Rule was null and void because the Acting DHS Secretary promulgated it while serving in violation of the FVRA and HSA. In response, on November 17, 2020, the Defendants moved to dismiss the Plaintiffs’ claims that the Rule was invalid because it was issued by an unlawfully serving Acting DHS Secretary, insisting that the Rule was promulgated pursuant to the APA and ratified by lawful agency officials, including the Acting DHS Secretary.
On February 2, 2021, the new Biden administration issued an Executive Order calling for the new Secretary of Homeland Security to review the agency's actions around the public charge rule. As a result of this order, the District Court granted a stay of the proceedings for up to 90 days, on the condition that the agency not take any action to implement or enforce the rule during the period of the stay. However, on February 22, 2021, the defendants reported to the court that no agreement had been reached to stop agency action during the stay, so its conditions were not met.
On March 10, 2021, the defendants informed the court that the Biden Administration had decided to stop defending the public charge rule change, no longer pursue appellate review of District Court stays of the rule, and return to the previously-used guidance on the public charge rule. As a result, the case was stayed on March 11, 2021. After a joint request from the plaintiffs and the Biden Administration, the Clerk of the Supreme Court also agreed to dismiss the case from its docket before hearing the argument.
The court denied the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and the defendants' partial motion to dismiss on September 30, 2021.
The case is ongoing.
Summary Authors
Aaron Gurley (3/26/2020)
Becca Rogers (12/19/2020)
Ben Marvin-Vanderryn (4/13/2022)
State of Washington v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Eastern District of Washington (2019)
For PACER's information on parties and their attrorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16079685/parties/state-of-new-york-v-united-states-department-of-homeland-security/
Daniels, George B. (New York)
Gorsuch, Neil M. (Colorado)
Hall, Peter W. (Vermont)
Ash, Melanie Calandra Teresa (New York)
Azmy, Baher (New York)
Battles, Benjamin D. (Vermont)
Beale, Elana Rose (New York)
Bernhardt, Doris F. (New York)
Bowles, Amy (New York)
Cameron, Susan Joan (New York)
Daniels, George B. (New York)
Gorsuch, Neil M. (Colorado)
Hall, Peter W. (Vermont)
Ash, Melanie Calandra Teresa (New York)
Azmy, Baher (New York)
Battles, Benjamin D. (Vermont)
Beale, Elana Rose (New York)
Bernhardt, Doris F. (New York)
Bowles, Amy (New York)
Cameron, Susan Joan (New York)
Carter, Zachary W. (New York)
Chu, Ming-Qi (New York)
Colangelo, Matthew (New York)
Donovan, Thomas J. Jr. (Vermont)
Ehrlich, Andrew J. (New York)
Goldstein, Elena Stacy (New York)
Herzog, Steven C. (New York)
Hurwitz, Jonathan H (New York)
James, Letitia (New York)
Jenerette, Tonya (New York)
Johnson, James E. (New York)
Kelleher, Kathleen M. (New York)
Leval, Pierre Nelson (New York)
Lu, Hope (New York)
Meyer, Amanda (New York)
O'Loughlin, Robert Joseph III (New York)
Perry, Joshua (Connecticut)
Rosner, Abigail Everett (New York)
Saini, Ajay (New York)
Schwarz, Ghita (New York)
Shafiqullah, Hasan (New York)
Sinnreich, Daniel Shiah (New York)
Spottswood, Eleanor (Vermont)
Thomas, Brittany (New York)
Thompson, Julio A. (Vermont)
Tong, William (Connecticut)
Underwood, Barbara D. (New York)
Vale, Judith Naomi (New York)
Weaver, Cynthia C. (New York)
Welber, Susan (New York)
Wu, Steven C. (New York)
Berman, Keri L. (District of Columbia)
Cholera, Kuntal (District of Columbia)
Davis, Ethan P. (District of Columbia)
Francisco, Noel (District of Columbia)
Haas, Alexander K (District of Columbia)
Hunt, Joseph H. (District of Columbia)
Kolsky, Joshua (District of Columbia)
Lynch, Jason C. (District of Columbia)
Soskin, Eric J. (District of Columbia)
Bailey, Regan (District of Columbia)
Barbero, Megan (District of Columbia)
Bullerjahn, Caroline Herman (Massachusetts)
Chan, Denny W. (California)
Cherayil, Monisha (Maryland)
Curet, Tess L. (California)
DeFilipp, Kristyn (Massachusetts)
Escoriaza, Phillip A. (District of Columbia)
Frisina, Christopher J (District of Columbia)
Gans, David H. (District of Columbia)
Grogg, Adam Anderson (District of Columbia)
Havemann, William Ernest (District of Columbia)
Hirschhorn, Russell L. (New York)
Huseny, Sadik Harry (California)
Kathawala, Rene (New York)
Kean, Natalie Elise (District of Columbia)
Kennelly, Kaitland McCann (New York)
Krumplitsch, Susan Marie (California)
Letter, Douglas (District of Columbia)
Levine, Jared Alexander (New York)
Levy, Roger A. (New York)
Li, Anne Elise Herold (New York)
Lovejoy, Brittany N. (California)
Masters, Owen (District of Columbia)
Plutshack, Alexandra B. (California)
Ray, Sarah M. (California)
Sprague, Charles Ferer (California)
Stameshkin, Elizabeth L. (California)
Tatelman, Todd B. (District of Columbia)
Virgien, Kyle A. (California)
Waters, Edward T. (District of Columbia)
Yu, Victor Haohan (California)
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16079685/state-of-new-york-v-united-states-department-of-homeland-security/
Last updated March 20, 2023, 12:33 p.m.
State / Territory: New York
Case Type(s):
Public Benefits/Government Services
Special Collection(s):
Trump Immigration Enforcement Order Challenges
Key Dates
Filing Date: Aug. 21, 2019
Case Ongoing: Yes
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
State and City of New York, State of Connecticut, State of Vermont.
Plaintiff Type(s):
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: No
Class Action Outcome: Not sought
Defendants
United States Department of Homeland Security, Federal
United States of America, Federal
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Federal
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 551 et seq.
Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201
Constitutional Clause(s):
Due Process: Substantive Due Process
Available Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
U.S. Supreme Court merits opinion
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Mixed
Nature of Relief:
Preliminary injunction / Temp. restraining order
Source of Relief:
Order Duration: 2019 - None
Content of Injunction:
Issues
General:
Public benefits (includes, e.g., in-state tuition, govt. jobs)
Discrimination-basis:
National origin discrimination
Benefit Source:
Immigration/Border:
National Origin/Ethnicity: