The Patriot Post® · Leftist Judges Strike Trump Immigrant Welfare Rule

As sure as thunder follows lightning, leftist judges have once again issued rulings against another of President Donald Trump’s immigration rules. Three different district court judges, all Democrat appointees, have ruled that Trump’s executive order requiring that noncitizens seeking entrance into the country have their own health insurance so as to not become a burden to U.S. taxpayers was unconstitutional. Furthermore, two of the judges issued nationwide injunctions effectively preventing the Department of Homeland Security from implementing the order anywhere in the country.

The problem is that the law in question, U.S. Code 1182, grants the executive branch broad authority in setting the parameters for determining legal entry requirements for noncitizens. All three judges took issue with the Trump administration’s change in what constituted an individual being classified as a “public charge.” Past administrations had defined a person as a public charge if they primarily supported themselves via cash benefit programs. The DHS under Trump has expanded that artificially narrow definition to include those who benefit from non-cash government programs.

National Review notes, “The bottom line is that the term ‘public charge’ by itself is imprecise, while the current statute is very clear that the executive branch gets to implement it as it chooses. When Congress uses a vague term, deliberately refuses to define that term, and instructs the executive branch to enforce its ‘opinion’ of which immigrants satisfy the meaning of the term, courts have no serious option but to let the executive do more or less what it wants.”

Like many others, this case is bound for the Supreme Court, where, based on the clear reading of the law, Trump should see another win.