New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday that the city will sue the Trump administration over a new immigration rule scheduled to take effect Friday.
The policy would allow immigration officials to consider whether green card applicants are likely to depend on public benefits.
The rule expands the range of benefits officials may examine when reviewing applicants.
Those programs include Medicaid, SNAP food assistance, housing aid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
The Trump administration’s policy reflects its commitment to admitting people who are likely to contribute rather than become long term dependents on welfare funded by taxpayers.
That approach comes as the administration seeks to address the combined strains of large scale immigration and an expansive social safety net.
Mamdani attacked the rule as an “undisguised effort to strip New Yorkers of the services they rely on, the public benefits they are entitled to.”
His response placed access to government assistance at the center of another confrontation between New York City and the Trump administration.
At a press conference announcing the lawsuit, Mamdani said, “Here in New York City, however, cruelty is not how we seek to govern. Immigrants are New Yorkers.”
“And like I said once before, to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. That is why today we are confronting this injustice with the solidarity and action that it demands,” Mamdani continued.
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New York City is leading a coalition that includes Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Santa Clara County and King County.
The coalition plans to sue the federal government over what Mamdani called the gross illegality of the public charge rule and the damage he said it would cause.
Mamdani also said the city is filing its case alongside a separate challenge led by Attorney General James.
He thanked James for her partnership and credited her with standing alongside New Yorkers in the dispute.
During the same appearance, Mamdani argued that people could be pushed away from government programs.
He claimed the rule would not save money as intended, but would instead create additional strain throughout the broader system.
“Families, including those with children, who are U.S. citizens, have already begun to forego essential services like SNAP, Medicaid, and affordable housing out of the fear that if they use these programs, immigration officers could use it as justification to deny them a future in our country,” he said.
Mamdani’s remarks claimed that as many as 4 million people across the country could leave their health care coverage because of the rule.
That estimate included 1.8 million children, and he warned that the consequences were not merely abstract.
The mayor further claimed that people could die because of the changes. He said the rate of premature mortality in New York City immigrant communities could rise by as much as 10.6% during the next five years.
Mamdani argued that denying services would not eliminate people’s needs.
Instead, he claimed it would compound those needs and produce greater costs that working people would carry for years.
He also insisted the rule would not reduce waste, improve public safety or make life better for New Yorkers.
In the socialist mayor’s telling, asking prospective permanent residents to demonstrate independence from public assistance amounts to confusion and cruelty.
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The Trump administration sees the issue differently, focusing on whether prospective immigrants are prepared to work, build and contribute.
The policy rests on the view that legal status and welfare access should not combine to attract people seeking an easier life subsidized by the government and American taxpayers.
America has long attracted people willing to risk everything for an opportunity to build a better life.
The administration’s position is that immigration should favor people ready to participate in both the opportunities and responsibilities of the country, rather than those seeking a generous welfare system.
That distinction is also a matter of fairness to the people financing the programs.
Mamdani, however, is taking the Trump administration to court to preserve welfare access for green card applicants, once again putting his socialist priorities on full display.
