Mamdani vows to fight Trump rule tying green cards to benefit use

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has vowed to fight a new Trump administration rule indicating that an applicant’s use of Medicaid, food stamps or housing aid can count against a green card application.

Mamdani voiced his opposition on social media, framing the policy as a threat to immigrant families. “New York City will use every tool at our disposal to fight this attack on immigrant families and the communities that make our city the greatest on earth,” he said. However, it remains to be seen how exactly he plans to push back.

Alarmingly, the rule could subject hundreds of thousands of immigrants to closer review and steer families away from benefits that could mean life and death. A comparable effort under the first Trump administration ran into several court challenges before it was reversed under President Joe Biden. Some observers have likened the change to a wealth test.

The new measure scraps a 2022 Biden regulation and hands officers back wide latitude from the first Trump administration to weigh applications on factors such as finances and use of means-tested benefits like food stamps, Medicaid and housing aid. However, some refugees, asylees and humanitarian applicants remain exempt. Speaking to CBS, USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow said the agency is “restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves.”

Last November, the Department of Homeland Security proposed to put the number of green card adjustment applicants facing public-charge review at about 588,000 a year. The department also projected that roughly a million people in immigrant households could drop or avoid public benefits for fear that using them could harm their immigration cases. Applied only briefly, the earlier version yielded no denials but still added to applicants’ paperwork and costs.

Asian immigrants are easily among those most exposed to the change. For one, immigrants make up nearly one in five U.S. healthcare workers, as we previously reported. And Filipinos particularly account for a disproportionate share, including more than 170,000 nurses. Nearly 1.5 million Asian immigrants also sit in family-based green card backlogs, with some visa categories facing waits that approach or exceed two decades.

The earlier policy mainly drove eligible families away from benefits, even aid for their U.S.-citizen children. It will not be a surprise if the new rule does the same. And out of similar fear, many households may forgo health care, food or housing help instead of jeopardizing their immigration status, though the rule leaves the decision largely to individual officers.

USCIS has said more detailed guidance for officers will follow before the Sept. 18 effective date.