JUSTICE
Miami, Mar 30 (EFE News) .- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led a coalition of 14 states before the Supreme Court on Tuesday in defense of former President Donald Trump’s “public charge” rule after lower courts they will reject his attempt to rescue this anti-immigrant measure.
Paxton assured that Texas taxpayers pay “hundreds of millions of dollars” a year to serve undocumented immigrants, for which he considered necessary the “public charge”, a federal law that prohibits the immigration of foreigners who probably depend on government programs funded by taxpayers.
Earlier, an Illinois county and the nonprofit Casa Maryland sued the Trump Administration in January 2020 challenging the “public charge” rule, and the court blocked its enforcement.
The case finally reached the Supreme Court, where the federal government, after the arrival of President Joe Biden, refused to defend it, so the “public charge” ceased to be in force and the judicial processes related to it were suspended.
Faced with this government decision, Texas and the other conservative states first sought to defend the rule in the Seventh Circuit court of appeals, but their request was denied, so they are now appealing directly to the Supreme Court.
As in the previous lawsuit, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia are joining Texas in this new attempt to hamper Biden’s immigration agenda.
“Without the public charge rule, our budget for Medicaid and other vital services will skyrocket and get too low, costing taxpayers millions more and reducing the quality of service we can provide,” Paxton said.
Like Trump, prosecutors in these states consider this measure necessary, which facilitates the rejection of low-income legal immigrants who may become a public charge in the future, or withdraw the legal residence permit from those who subsequently access immigration programs. help and depend on them to survive.
The Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) defines a public charge as any individual who can potentially depend on the Government as a primary source of subsistence, which would be demonstrated by receiving money of public origin as a substitute for income.
These public benefits include food assistance, housing assistance vouchers, and programs that subsidize the cost of medications, among others.
This meant that thousands of migrants refused to apply for public benefits to which they were entitled for fear of possible consequences in their attempt to achieve permanent residence in the country.
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