The Trump administration's new public charge rule took effect on September 18. Two days later, twenty-two states, the District of Columbia, and the governor of Pennsylvania filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to block it.
Their argument: the federal government shouldn't be allowed to consider whether a green card applicant is likely to end up on welfare before handing them permanent residency.
The rule itself is straightforward. The Department of Homeland Security updated its definition of "public charge" — a person who is likely to become primarily dependent on the government for long-term subsistence. Under the new framework, immigration officers can count nearly any means-tested public benefit, regardless of duration, against an applicant. Benefits used by legally obligated family members count too.
The estimated fiscal impact, as reported by Townhall's Scott McClallen: $4.05 billion annually in reduced federal Medicaid and CHIP payments, and $1.02 billion annually in reduced federal SNAP payments. Combined, that's over $5 billion a year the federal government would stop spending on benefits for non-citizens who haven't yet received permanent status.
Twenty-two states looked at those numbers and sued to keep the money flowing.
The coalition reads like a map of the places Americans are leaving: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is among those leading the charge.
The public charge concept isn't new. The underlying law is 144 years old. The federal government issued a previous public charge rule in 2022 under Biden that effectively gutted enforcement by narrowing what counted. The Trump administration's update restored teeth to a statute that had been on the books since the 1880s.
So the states aren't fighting a novel executive overreach. They're fighting to keep a century-old law defanged — because the version that actually works would cut $5 billion in annual federal transfers to their states.
The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York, a venue selection that tells you everything about the legal strategy. Forum-shop to a friendly jurisdiction, get an injunction from a sympathetic judge, and let the appeals process buy time. The same playbook used against the first-term travel ban, against asylum policy, against virtually every immigration enforcement measure that threatened to reduce the number of people dependent on government services.
Every one of those twenty-two states runs its own public assistance programs that are partially funded by federal dollars. Fewer green card holders on benefits means less federal reimbursement flowing into state coffers. The lawsuit frames this as a humanitarian concern. The budget math frames it as a revenue dispute.
Dana Nessel's Michigan has a Medicaid enrollment that's grown steadily for years. California's SNAP caseload is the largest in the nation. These aren't states scrambling to help immigrants achieve self-sufficiency. These are states that built their benefit structures around federal matching funds and don't want the formula to change.
A 144-year-old law. A $5 billion annual price tag. Twenty-two attorneys general who'd rather go to court than explain to voters why self-sufficiency is too much to ask.