Suits seek to block immigration rule
‘Public charge’ policy condemned as discriminatory
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a group of immigration rights advocates filed separate lawsuits Friday challenging the Trump administration’s new immigration policy that would deny green cards to immigrants who use, or are deemed likely to use, public assistance benefits.
The state’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claims that the rule that was announced Monday and scheduled to take effect in October discriminates against hardworking immigrants and discourages them from seeking health care, food and housing through government programs.
“I can boil down to four words what the Trump administration took 837 pages to say: ‘I don’t like immigrants,’ ” Becerra said at a news conference to announce the lawsuit. “They don’t like immigrants — they don’t like them if they’re documented or undocumented.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom joined the criticism of the president and the administration’s new policy.
“He has a particular problem with brown people,” he said, later declining to elaborate.
A coalition of immigrant rights advocates announced its own lawsuit Friday morning, saying the law would disproportionately affect nonwhite families and undermine “the economic and social integ
rity of communities and states nationwide” by changing the nature of immigration in the U.S. That suit was also filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, a plaintiff in the suit, said the policy “sends a clear message that if you are not white and wealthy, you are not welcome in this country.”
The suits are part of a growing effort to stop implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds,” or “public charge” rule, which says that use of government benefits such as Medicaid, federal housing assistance or food stamps are grounds to deny an immigrant permanent legal residency or entry to the United States.
Santa Clara County Counsel James R. Williams and San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a joint lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, asking a judge to block the policy.
Newsom, in a statement, said the rule runs contrary to the traditions of U.S. immigration.
“Immigrants literally built this nation, and today help make California an economic engine that powers our country,” he said. “This latest move by the federal administration to demonize immigrants is personal for us, in a state where half of our children have at least one immigrant parent. This new rule, designed to create fear in immigrant families, is cruel and threatens our public health.
“That is not who we are in California, and not who we are as Americans,” he said.