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On Monday, April 27, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Texas and 13 other states, rejecting their attempt to intervene in dismissed appeals and revive the Trump-era "public charge" rule. The Trump public charge rule, which sought to limit admission to immigrants based on the potential that they could use public benefits in the future, had been declared unlawful, and vacated, in a case litigated by Goldberg Kohn on behalf of Cook County. The Supreme Court ruled that the states could not intervene in the dismissed appeals and would have to first make their case at the district court level.
On March 9, 2021, the Biden administration dropped appeals pending before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The Department of Homeland Security immediately stopped enforcing the public charge rule on March 9, 2021. On March 11, 2021, DHS filed for public inspection with the Federal Register a rule that formally removes from the Code of Federal Regulations the now-vacated 2019 rule on public charge inadmissibility. Texas and the other states subsequently sought to intervene in the dismissed appeals, arguing that the Biden administration prevented enforcement of the Trump public charge rule and did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act in dropping the rule. The case is Texas et al. v. Cook County, Illinois, et al., case number 20A150, in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Goldberg Kohn attorneys David E. Morrison, Steven A. Levy and A. Colin Wexler represent Cook County alongside Cook County State’s Attorneys Jessica Scheller and Lauren Miller. Their co-counsel representing the Illinois Coalition for Refugee Rights include attorneys from Sidley Austin LLP, the National Housing Law Project, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and the Legal Council for Health Justice.
The developments above were covered by Law360.
