Illinois and Chicago sue Trump over looming rule making it harder for immigrants to get green cards
Chicago and Illinois are filing legal challenges to a Trump administration rule set to take effect Friday that would give the federal government broader power to deny green cards to immigrants who receive welfare benefits — the latest legal clash between the White House and Democratic leaders Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul signed the state onto one of two lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and named Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and its director, Joseph Edlow, as defendants. Illinois joined a coalition of 22 states and the District of Columbia in that lawsuit. Chicago signed onto a separate lawsuit led by New York City, alongside San Francisco; California’s Santa Clara County; Seattle; and King County, Washington.
The cities and states argue that the federal rule in question, published in July, gives the Department of Homeland Security overly broad discretion to limit green cards and visas for immigrants who participate in Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other social safety net programs.
President Donald Trump’s administration had issued new rules on a long-standing “public charge” provision that says the U.S. can deny entry to people who are likely to become dependent on government assistance. The new rules reverse a policy from President Joe Biden’s administration that limited “public charge” considerations to only include cash benefits or long-term care.
“Chicago will not stand by while the federal government forces immigrant families to choose between putting food on the table, taking their children to the doctor, or protecting their ability to remain in this country,” Mayor Johnson said in a statement. “This rule is not only cruel, it is unlawful, and it threatens the health and safety of our entire city. … Chicago has fought these attacks before, and, alongside New York and cities across the country, we will fight them again.”
In a statement, DHS spokesperson Chandler Rebel defended the rule change and said the states and cities challenging it are “terrified they will lose federal funds” because immigrants “might remove themselves from American welfare programs.”
“We’re shaking in our boots over this supposedly terrible outcome,” Rebel wrote.
The states’ lawsuit argues noncitizens and their family members would face an “impossible task” — weighing their participation in benefits programs against the risk of jeopardizing their path to a green card. It also contends the rule would harm states “in predictable ways” as immigrants disenroll from programs such as preventive healthcare, food assistance and school lunches, potentially costing states federal funding tied to enrollment.
The plaintiffs in the state coalition argued they stand to lose $575 million in federal payments related to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding and billions in payments related to Medicaid and children’s health insurance.
The Trump administration’s rule is its “latest attempt to target immigrants and their families, this time by punishing them for lawfully using public benefits they are entitled to,” Raoul said in a news release Monday.
The municipal coalition’s lawsuit argues Biden’s narrower 2022 definition of “public charge” reflected “an understanding that the use of supplemental public benefits can provide support on the journey to a better life and is not a reliable predictor of future dependence,” and that the new DHS rule is too vague.
“John Adams described a republic as ‘an Empire of Laws, and not of Men,'” the lawsuit says, referring to the second U.S. president. “Our nation’s founding is grounded in this core value. With the new public charge ‘rule,’ Defendants eviscerate this principle.”
Monday’s dual legal challenges come after the Trump administration’s lawsuit over Illinois and Chicago’s sanctuary policies for immigrants was dismissed last year and the president’s subsequent attempt to mobilize the National Guard in Illinois was blocked.