COURT NIXES BID TO DEFEND TRUMP IMMIGRATION PLAN
States had banded together to keep ‘public charge’ rule
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal from several states led by Republicans that had sought to step in to defend a Trump-era immigration policy that the Biden administration has abandoned.
The court’s decision was one sentence long and said only that the states’ petition seeking review was “dismissed as improvidently granted.”
In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said the case had presented “a host of important questions.” But he added that a “mare’s nest” of procedural issues stood in the way of a clean resolution of those questions.
Roberts stressed that the dismissal “should not be taken as reflective of a view” on how the questions should be answered, and he suggested that the court may resolve them in another context.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch joined the chief justice’s concurring opinion.
The Trump-era policy at issue in the case revised the “public charge” rule, which allows officials to deny permanent legal status, also known as a green card, to immigrants who are likely to need public assistance. In the past, only substantial and sustained monetary help or long-term institutionalization counted, and fewer than 1 percent of applicants were disqualified on public-charge grounds.
The Trump administration’s revised rule broadened the criteria to include government programs like Medicaid, food stamps and other “noncash benefits providing for basic needs such as housing or food” used in any 12 months in a 36-month period. Use of two kinds of benefits in a single month counted as two months, and so on.
The policy was challenged in lawsuits around the nation, and several federal judges blocked it. But in January 2020, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court revived the policy while appeals moved forward.
After President Joe Biden took office, his administration decided not to defend the policy in court. At the administration’s request, the Supreme Court dismissed a separate appeal that had reached the justices, and lower federal courts took similar actions.
Relying on a nationwide ruling against the policy from a federal court in Illinois and without following administrative law procedures, the Biden administration then revoked the policy. (It has since started the process of issuing its own version.)
Arizona and a dozen other states sought to intervene in a case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, to defend the Trump-era rule, saying that the Biden administration’s actions amounted to legal gamesmanship meant to ensure there would be no definitive ruling on whether the old policy was lawful. A divided three-judge panel of the appeals court denied the states’ motion.