The Legal Aid Society, along with the Democracy Forward Foundation and the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, challenging a new rule which unlawfully permits the denial of lawful permanent resident (LPR) status to certain immigrants applying through family-based petitions if they or their dependent children are in receipt of supplemental public benefits. Specifically, the new rule radically expands the federal government’s interpretation of the public charge provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, asserting that immigrants in receipt of a broad range of supplemental benefits programs (including health insurance, food assistance, and even school lunches for K-12 students and Pell Grants for college students) can be denied LPR status on the basis of the public charge provision. This is in sharp contrast with decades of legal interpretation, which has long found that the public charge provision applies only to the very small percentage of applicants who are assessed to be primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.

By seeking to vacate the new rule, which went into effect September 18, 2026, The Legal Aid Society and co-counsel hope not only to bring DHS policy back in line with the law, but to reverse the significant chilling effect which this rule imparts on the use of public benefits by non-citizens. Through discouraging the lawful use of public benefits, the new rule promises increased rates of poverty, food insecurity, and communicable disease. In vacating the rule, The Legal Aid Society aims to protect aspiring immigrants from having to unnecessarily choose between pursuing LPR status and satisfying their most basic needs through supplemental benefits programs.