On Sept. 10, a judge for the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction pausing the federal government’s attempt to restrict access to certain public programs based on immigration status.
The injunction arises out of a legal challenge by 20 states, including California, and the District of Columbia, to four notices issued in July by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Labor and Justice regarding which programs were considered “federal public benefits” that could not be accessed by certain immigrants under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). For nearly 30 years, the agencies had interpreted the term “federal public benefit” as exempting multiple types of programs and services, including K-12 educational programs and workforce development programs. In their notices, however, the agencies revoked the previous interpretations of PRWORA and informed states that 13 previously exempted programs were now subject to the immigration verification requirements in PRWORA. Included in this list of newly covered programs were Head Start and several adult education services. States were given 30 days to begin verifying immigration status of participants in these 13 programs.
In ruling in favor of the plaintiff states, the court determined that the notices were “legislative rules” that necessitated notice-and-comment rulemaking in order to be effectuated, and thereby found those three notices to be arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law. The court also concluded that all four notices violated the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution by imposing retroactive and coercive conditions on federal funds without affording the states a genuine choice to accept or reject the new conditions. The court found irreparable harm to the states and individuals in need of the affected services should the agencies be allowed to enforce their new interpretation. Thus, the court issued an injunction preventing the agencies from taking any action on the notices while the lawsuit is pending and denied the federal government’s request to stay the decision for seven days. The government may decide to appeal the decision.
