WASHINGTON—

The US Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to enforce its ‘public charge’ immigration restriction, for now.

The order followed a 5-4 split vote that divided the court’s conservatives and liberals. The Washington Post reported that the order supporting the Trump administration was handed down as Chief Justice John Roberts was presiding over President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. He was joined by conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in lifting the injunction.

All four of the court’s liberal justices – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – noted their disagreement. Neither side explained its reasoning, which is not uncommon in such emergency motions.

A Federal Court in New York had earlier issued an injunction enforcing the public charge law. The Department of Homeland Security challenged this in the Supreme Court.
The legal fight in the lower courts will continue

The administration’s rule was issued in August to restrict immigrants if the government believes they will rely on public assistance, such as housing or health care benefits.

‘It’s a sad day in America when the U.S. Supreme Court affirms a completely discriminatory policy that measures the worth of a person – not by the strength of his or her character – but by the size of the person’s bank account,’ said a statement from the National Partnership for New Americans.

This rule is an all-out assault on legal immigration, said David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Federal officials say the rule ensures that immigrants can cover their food, housing and other expenses without burdening taxpayers. The change is not retroactive and exempts refugees and asylees who fled persecution for safety in the United States, the Washington Post reported

A release by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that it obtained a pivotal judicial victory after the Supreme Court stayed a nationwide injunction that prevented the agency from enforcing a long-standing law that makes an alien inadmissible if the alien is likely at any time to become a public charge.

The high court granted DHS’s motion for a stay of the preliminary injunction issued by a single judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

‘DHS has always been confident that an objective judiciary would reverse the injunctions imposed on the agency so that we are able to enforce long-standing law passed by a bipartisan Congress,’ said Ken Cuccinelli, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the DHS Deputy Secretary.

‘Self-sufficiency and self-reliance are key American values not to be litigiously dismissed, but to be encouraged and adopted by the next generation of immigrants. We plan to fully implement this rule in 49 states and are confident we will win the case on the merits.’

The final rule, issued in August 2019, prescribes how DHS will determine whether an alien is inadmissible to the United States based on his or her likelihood of becoming a public charge at any time in the future, as set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

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Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to enforce its ‘public charge’ rule