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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case on Trump-Era ‘Public Charge’ Immigration Rule

The Supreme Court cleaved another immigration case from its docket on Tuesday at the request of the Biden administration.

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court cleaved another immigration case from its docket on Tuesday at the request of the Biden administration.

Former President Donald Trump revealed the so-called “public charge” rule in 2019, but multiple court challenges and Covid-19 have prevented the policy’s institution. Under the rule, green card applicants would have to first prove they weren’t burdens to the country or public charges before approval.

When the court agreed to hear the case in late February, New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote in a response brief that the case would be irrelevant after the election of President Joe Biden.

“The incoming presidential administration has already announced that the final rule at issue here will be withdrawn or otherwise reversed within the administration’s first one hundred days — action that will eliminate any live controversy under Article III,” she wrote.

James’ assessment of the case proved to be prescient on Tuesday when Acting Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote to the court that both parties were requesting the case be dismissed.

The move is the most-recent display of disinterest in immigration related disputes brought by Trump, from both the high court and the Biden administration.

Although agreeing to hear the issue last October, justices last month dismissed another immigration related case, which would have examined the legality of Trump’s transfer of funds from emergency coffers to be used for wall construction. The former president claimed immigrant populations seeking asylum in the country was a national emergency, diverting $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds to construct a large border wall.

In a letter, Prelogar wrote the removal was in reaction to a myriad of day-one initiatives by Biden.

“On January 20, 2021, President Biden issued a proclamation declaring that ‘[i]t shall be the policy of [his] administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall,’” Prelogar wrote.

The court removed another immigration-related case from its docket earlier February, after the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security announced it would not require non-Mexican immigrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico while awaiting hearings. The Department also issued a notice issuing an end to enrolling new individuals into that program.

An injunction was formerly granted against the policy after a federal judge found it was implemented arbitrarily. The Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling, but later limited the injunction’s scope.

Categories / Appeals, Government, Politics

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