The Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus have filed a legal brief opposing the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule change, saying the discriminatory policy harms black, Latino, and AAPI immigrant communities in particular. “Extensive evidence demonstrates that the rule was motivated by President Trump’s blatant animus towards non-white, non-European immigrants,” they write, “and that it was designed to disproportionately impact those individuals.”
The legal brief comes just as the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, gave the Trump administration the green light to enforce the policy while litigation continues in lower courts, allowing U.S. officials to deny green cards to immigrants who are legally accessing, or might access, public benefits such as food assistance. In the brief filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the three groups say “the rule will have a chilling effect, causing immigrants and their families to refuse public benefits to which they are entitled.” Nothing about this policy has been motivated by legitimate reasoning, but instead the impeached president’s racism.
“Repeated and consistent statements made by President Trump and high ranking officials in the Trump administration, along with the administration’s relentless efforts to enact policies that will curtail immigration by people of color, demonstrate a pattern of bias,” the three caucuses say. “President Trump’s hostility towards immigrants of color was apparent from the moment he began his campaign in June 2015, with a speech characterizing immigrants from Mexico as ‘rapists’ with ‘lots of problems.’ In June 2018, President Trump said that he stood by those remarks, and that he ‘was 100 percent right.’
“In addition, the evidence demonstrating that the Trump administration ignored the multitude of studies and comments documenting the disparate impact of the rule is sufficient to sustain a claim that the rule is arbitrary and capricious and should therefore be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act,” the groups continue. “For the foregoing reasons, the members of the CBC, CHC, and CAPAC that join this brief respectfully urge that this Court affirm the lower court’s decision granting Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.”
Community groups, immigrant rights advocates, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidates were among the many voices that condemned the Supreme Court’s recent decision. Pili Tobar, deputy director of immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice, called the policy a wealth test that will wall off the American Dream for many. “The Supreme Court’s decision on public charge just confirmed that immigration in Trump’s America is means tested and only for the rich,” she said. “Trump and his Senior Advisor Stephen Miller want to make America white again by closing the door to people of color, women, Muslims and working class families striving for a better life.”