NEW YORK _ New York Attorney General Leticia James filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block the Trump administration from making it nearly impossible for immigrants to obtain green cards if they've ever relied on welfare, blasting the proposed policy as "a clear violation of our laws and our values."
The suit _ which was filed jointly in Manhattan federal court with the city's law department and the attorneys general for Connecticut and Vermont _ asks a judge to block the administration's proposed expansion of the so-called "public charge" rule, claiming it's rooted in racial animus and flies in the face of long-held immigration laws.
"The Trump administration's thinly veiled efforts to only allow those who meet their narrow ethnic, racial and economic criteria to enter our nation is a clear violation of our laws and our values," James said in a statement.
"Quite simply, under this rule, more children will go hungry, more families will go without medical care and more people will be living in the shadows and on the streets. We cannot and we will not let that happen."
President Trump's Department of Homeland Security entered the controversial rule in the Federal Register on Aug. 12, meaning it will take effect in October unless blocked by a court.
The Trump rule would expand an existing law stipulating that immigrants seeking permanent status must prove they won't pose an economic burden on the nation, or a "public charge" in bureaucratic lingo.
Under the administration's proposed parameters, any past reliance on programs like Medicaid, food stamps or even federal housing assistance could qualify as a "public charge" offense and thereby disqualify immigrants from obtaining permanent status.
Advocates say an attempt to curtail legal immigration in such a way would disproportionately affect people from Central America, Africa and other economically suffering regions of the world.
New York's five boroughs would be particularly badly hit by such an overhaul, according to a recent study by Mayor Bill de Blasio's Immigrant Affairs office, with thousands of non-citizen New Yorkers already dropping their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits out of fear that they'd be targeted by federal immigration authorities.
James charged in the lawsuit that the administration's fear-inducing public charge overhaul breaks with "a century's worth of case law" holding that immigrants who rely on non-cash benefits can't be considered public charges since they aren't primarily dependent on the government.
She and the other plaintiffs also argued the proposed rule is unconstitutional in specifically targeting "immigrants of color, immigrants with disabilities, and immigrants with limited resources at the time of their visa or green card application."
The lawsuit cited the president's own language as legal ammunition.
"(The rule) implements this administration's explicit animus against immigrants of color; it is the means by which immigrants from what this administration has described as 'shithole countries' will be excluded to the benefit of white, wealthy Europeans," the suit states.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a request for comment.
Tuesday's lawsuit comes less than a week after Ken Cuccinelli, Trump's acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, went on CNN and defended the new public charge rule by claiming the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty only applies to "people coming from Europe."
The poem, "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, reads in part, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
