U.S District Court of NY Issues Nationwide Injunction on Both DOS and DHS Public Charge Regulations Due to COVID-19 pandemic

July 29, 2020
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The U.S. District Court of New York (Southern District) on July 29, 2020 issued an order temporarily blocking the public charge rule during the COVID-19 pandemic.   The motion for preliminary injunction, and temporary stay of the USCIS Final Rule on Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds Rule’s application was granted. The stay will in be in effect for any period during which there is a declared national health emergency in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The order notes, “a nationwide injunction is both necessary to redress the harms caused by the Rule and appropriate given the strong federal interest in uniformity of the national health and immigration policies at issue here.” Previously, the U.S. Supreme Court had permitted the government to proceed with applying the public charge rule until all the legal challenges in various courts are resolved.  Judge Daniels commented that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision did not consider the effect of the pandemic, therefore compounding the many hardships the application of the rule may cause the large population of green card applicants it targets. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a separate order stating that the motion for preliminary injunction enjoining the application or implementation of the 2018 FAM Revisions, DOS Rule, and Proclamation is granted. The order notes, “a geographically limited injunction would be especially unworkable in a case such as this, where consular officers on foreign soil would have to determine how to apply different rules to different applicants.” Read the complete injunction order here
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