The attorneys general from Virginia and Washington co-lead a lawsuit filed Wednesday over the Trump administration’s new “public charge” policy. Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico and Rhode Island are also included in the lawsuit. In their complaint,  one of the states’ arguments is that the rule is an “abuse of discretion” because it “reverses a decades-old, consistent policy without reasoned analysis.” This suit follows another filed by two California counties on August 13. The new rule takes effect on October 15, 2019, and would weigh in past receipt of public assistance in addition to the established factors of income, health, and education level. This policy is one of many that has been criticized as an attempt by the Trump administration to limit legal immigration; experts say that this move could “cut legal immigration down in half.” 

– Weekly Immigration Briefing by Olivia Hester, Immigration Law Analyst at Docketwise

 

Posted in: Immigration