The Pros, Cons, and Hidden Costs
Wednesday, September 16, 1:30PM

New York City and state Attorney General Letitia James filed parallel federal lawsuits Monday challenging a Trump administration rule and accompanying guidance that would expand the public benefits immigration officers can consider when deciding certain green-card applications.

The rule is scheduled to take effect Friday, and city officials argue it unlawfully allows immigration officers to count some green-card applicants’ use of benefits they are legally eligible to receive against them, while creating a much broader chilling effect that could frighten other immigrants and their family members away from health care, food assistance and other programs.

“None of this is abstract. People could die as a result of these changes,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a City Hall press conference announcing the challenges.

Mamdani cited an estimate that premature mortality could rise in New York City immigrant communities under the new policy. The city’s complaint attributes that projection to a study by city Health Department researchers, which estimated premature mortality could increase by 4.4% to 10.6% over five years among New York City immigrants under 65 and children who are U.S. citizens living in mixed-status households

What changes under the new rule

The fight centers on the federal government’s longstanding “public charge” test.

Federal immigration law allows the government to find certain noncitizens inadmissible if officials determine they are “likely at any time to become a public charge.” The law does not define the term, but requires immigration officers to consider factors including an applicant’s age, health, family status, finances, education and skills.

For people applying from within the United States to become lawful permanent residents, commonly known as green-card holders, USCIS says the test applies unless they fall into an exempt category. Refugees, asylees, Special Immigrant Juveniles and several other humanitarian categories are among those exempt.

Under the new USCIS guidance, officers can also consider an applicant’s use of means-tested public benefits.

For benefits received before Sept. 18, USCIS says officers will consider only public cash assistance for income maintenance and long-term institutionalization at government expense. For benefits received beginning Friday, the agency says officers can consider “any and all” means-tested benefits, listing cash assistance, housing assistance, food stamps and financial aid for college among its examples.

The guidance applies to covered green-card applications filed on or after Sept. 18. The guidance applies to covered green-card applications filed on or after Sept. 18. USCIS says officers will review all relevant evidence and make decisions case by case based on the totality of an applicant’s circumstances.

DHS rejects New York’s challenge

USCIS says the updated guidance aligns with congressional intent that immigrants in the United States be self-sufficient and not dependent on taxpayer-funded government benefits.

DHS, responding to questions from amNewYork, did not directly address the lawsuits’ claims that the policy exceeds the department’s legal authority, nor did it answer whether implementation would proceed Friday as scheduled.

Instead, a spokesperson accused “sanctuary states” of being “terrified they will lose federal funds because hundreds of thousands of illegals and noncitizens might remove themselves from American welfare programs.”

“We’re shaking in our boots over this supposedly terrible outcome,” the spokesperson said, accusing “left-wing leaders” of “defrauding the American taxpayer.”

The public-charge test at issue, however, is an immigration admissibility test, not a rule determining who is eligible for public benefits. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for SNAP, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, while other noncitizens may qualify depending on their immigration status. USDA also says eligible members of a household can receive SNAP even when another household member is ineligible. 

Federal Medicaid generally requires U.S. citizenship or a qualifying immigration status, although limited federal coverage is available for emergency medical treatment for otherwise eligible people who cannot receive full Medicaid because of their immigration status.

New York City’s lawsuit argues the administration is unlawfully abandoning a much narrower understanding of “public charge” that, the plaintiffs say, has historically meant being primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.

Corporation Counsel Steve Banks called the new policy “even more harmful than the 2019 rule,” referring to the first Trump administration’s previous effort to broaden the public-charge standard.

The 2019 rule identified specific noncash programs, including SNAP, certain Medicaid coverage and federal housing assistance, and established thresholds for how their use would be weighed. The city argues the new policy goes further by allowing officers to consider any means-tested benefit without similarly defined limits.

Although the 2019 rule took effect in 2020 after higher courts stayed several injunctions, a federal judge later vacated it. After President Joe Biden took office, DHS dropped its appeal in March 2021, allowing that ruling to take effect, and formally removed the 2019 regulations.

City says the chilling effect has already begun

City officials say those fears are already changing people’s behavior.

Its complaint says NYC Health + Hospitals frontline workers have reported instances in which people declined to enroll in benefits or services because of fears surrounding public charge. New York City community health centers have reported an increase in missed and canceled appointments, while the Department of Social Services has seen a decline in SNAP enrollment among households headed by a noncitizen since the final rule was issued, according to the filing.

Based on the federal government’s own projected chilling effect, NYC Health + Hospitals estimates that more than 16,000 of its patients enrolled in Medicaid or Child Health Plus could disenroll because of concerns about the rule, according to the city’s complaint.

Immigrant advocates said similar fears are already reaching their offices.

Arlene Cruz Escobar, director of health programs at Make the Road New York, said green-card holders have asked whether they should drop public health insurance, while parents have questioned whether receiving SNAP for a child who is a U.S. citizen could hurt a pending green-card application.

In one case, Cruz Escobar said, the mother of a child who is a U.S. citizen and has a disability asked whether she should end the child’s Medicaid coverage because she feared immigration consequences. She also described a guardian raising similar concerns about Medicaid for a child with Special Immigrant Juvenile status, a category USCIS says is exempt from the public-charge test.

“These concerns are not hypothetical,” Cruz Escobar said.

Mamdani urged New Yorkers not to give up benefits without first seeking legal advice.

“Nothing about your or a family member’s eligibility to access benefits and services has changed,” he said. “If you rely on SNAP, Medicaid, or programs like WIC and TANF, do not disenroll without first seeking advice from a trusted legal provider.”

The city is planning community forums, trainings and clinics and is training outreach workers on the changes. The lawsuit says DSS expects to train about 9,000 agency employees and another 10,000 provider staff who work directly with applicants or recipients of programs including Medicaid and SNAP.

Two lawsuits target the same policy

New York City is joined in its lawsuit by Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Seattle and King County, Washington. James is leading a separate challenge brought by 22 states and the District of Columbia, with New York joined by California, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

James said her office asked local governments to bring their own parallel case because the potential effects of the rule required what she called an “all-of-government response.”

The city subsequently asked the Manhattan federal court to treat the two cases as related, saying they challenge the same DHS rule and USCIS guidance and raise substantially overlapping legal and factual issues.

The city coalition raises three claims under the federal Administrative Procedure Act. It argues that DHS exceeded its statutory authority, that the rule and guidance are arbitrary and capricious and, alternatively, that USCIS imposed substantive requirements through its guidance without going through required notice-and-comment procedures.

The city is asking the court to vacate the rule and guidance and block their implementation.

James said the new approach gives immigration officers substantially more discretion than the 2019 rule and fails to provide clear enough guidance about how that discretion should be exercised.

“Cruelty is the point. Having a chilling effect on immigrants is the point,” James said. “Letting individuals know that they are not welcomed here is the point. Immigration animus is the point.”

James said her office is also seeking to have the rule vacated and urged the judge to act before Friday.

“We won, and we intend to win again,” she said, referring to New York’s earlier challenge to the Trump administration’s public-charge policy.

Why are New York City taxi drivers dying on the job? 

A 52-year-old cabbie was found dead in his car Friday night — the third death of its kind in as many months, prompting the union representing the city’s for-hire-vehicle drivers to demand action on Monday. 

The union — the NY Taxi Workers Alliance — said that the driver, who it declined to identify out of respect for his family, pulled over after making a drop-off in Manhattan’s West Village between 5 and 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 11.

“He started work around 2:30 that afternoon and all the friends, they talk to each other, so they inform each other when they’re starting their shift,” said the union’s executive director, Bhairavi Desai, of how he and his other driver friends communicate throughout the day.

“After the rush hour, everyone’s trying to just contact each other, maybe have a break together, and they just couldn’t find him,” she added. “He wasn’t answering.”

The driver’s friends tracked down his cab to where he parked near the corner of 7th Avenue and Charles Street around 11 p.m. Friday night, Desai said. They were able to find him by contacting the broker for his taxi medallion, who used a GPS locator attached to the cab’s meter to trace it to the West Village corner.

“The broker found that he had done a drop between 5 and 5:30, and the car had not moved since then,” she said. “So then the friends drove there immediately and got there around 11, and that’s when they saw that he was just inside the car.”

Desai said the driver’s friends noticed upon arriving that the cab was on with the air conditioning running. She added that they then immediately called 911.

Emergency services personnel arrived and found the driver unresponsive, according to the NYPD. They tried to resuscitate him but were unable to, pronouncing him dead at the scene.

The alliance will hold a memorial for the driver on Tuesday morning at the West Village intersection where he was found.

Taxi drivers need self-care, union rep says

The driver’s cause of death is still being determined by the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, according to the NYPD. However, Desai said, the speculation is that he had a heart attack.

The driver, who lives on Long Island, is survived by his wife and 10-year-old twin children, Desai said. He has been a cabbie for many years, having purchased his taxi medallion with two of his friends in 2023.

The death comes after the union late last month held a vigil to honor one of the other taxi drivers who recently died in their cabs over the summer.

The 73-year-old driver, Gustave Bertrand Adjeli Yao, known in Harlem as 73-year-old Richard Coulibaly, was found by the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to have died from natural causes. Coulibaly died on July 2, during an extreme heat wave, which included the city’s first 100-degree day in over a decade.

The union held a separate memorial this past Friday for the other driver who died in their cab over the summer: Khalifa Siva.

Desai said Siva was diabetic and was found holding his insulin while pulled over inside his cab on the Henry Hudson Parkway near 81st Street in Upper Manhattan in late August.

When it comes to the connection between all three deaths, Desai said she believes they stem from drivers having to make fewer trips over longer hours with less time for breaks.

“They’re just spending less time, even during the shift, taking care of themselves,” she said. “Less time to go to the doctor and get your medicine and just properly take care of yourself. You’re supposed to work the job. The job’s not supposed to work you.”

A fellow cab driver named Wain Chin expressed a similar sentiment in a WhatsApp message shared with amNewYork.

“Too many of us put in long hours of work to cope with the rising cost of operation and living,” Chin said. “The same time app companies are trimming the compensation for our work. It is so much one body can take.”

Desai said the best solution is “comprehensive economic reform” for the industry that can allow drivers to earn more “without working themselves to death.” Additionally, she said they could use more resources for access to health care.

Twenty-five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Brooklyn communities once again gathered in vigils to remember the lives lost — and the neighbors, first responders and public servants who helped carry the borough through the aftermath.

In Marine Park, community members gathered Sept. 10 at the Carmine Carro Community Center for a 9/11 vigil led by Assembly Member Jaime Williams, a tradition that dates back to Sept. 23, 2001.

State Sen. Roxanne Persaud, who attended the Marine Park remembrance, reflected on the lasting impact of the attacks and the continued toll of 9/11-related illnesses.

“It is a day that each of us remembers what we were doing and where we were when we were attacked. Some of us lost relatives, friends and colleagues,” Persaud wrote on Facebook.

Persaud noted that she continues to participate in annual remembrance events that remind Brooklynites how profoundly the world changed that day.

“We continue to annually update our health information on the registry,” she said. “Each year I participate in several events where we are reminded that our world changed on that day and we must Never Forget.”

A day later, hundreds gathered at the American Veterans Memorial Pier in Bay Ridge for another annual vigil hosted by NIA Community Services Network in partnership with State Sen. Andrew Gounardes and City Council Member Kayla Santosuosso.

For Bay Ridge, the commemoration carries particular weight.

“Bay Ridge alone has lost so many to September 11th and its aftermath,” Santosuosso said. “They were family, friends and neighbors. People who walked our sidewalks and lived in our homes. They are heroes whose names adorn street signs across our neighborhood.”

Santosuosso said the annual gathering has become a decades-old tradition — one that reflects the neighborhood’s longstanding commitment to looking out for one another.

“This vigil of ours celebrates our capacity as neighbors to come together in mourning and strengthen each other in mutual support and love of those of us here tonight.”

Virginia Chieco, director of development and communications at NIA Community Services Network, said the vigil has become an enduring part of Bay Ridge’s identity.

“Here in Bay Ridge, we come together not only to remember, but to retain ourselves the strength that comes from community,” Chieco said.

She pointed to the “spirit of service” that emerged in the days and months following the attacks.

“In the days and months following Sept. 11, we saw neighbors helping neighbors, strangers reaching out to one another, and countless people answering the call to serve,” Chieco said. “That spirit of service and compassion continues to guide our community today.”

Gounardes used the 25th anniversary to reflect on how much has changed since the attacks — and the responsibility of those who remember to preserve that history for people who do not.

“Twenty-five years ago, in this very spot, one could look several miles north and see a fiery column of smoke and ash and dust spewing from where the towers of the World Trade Center once pierced the sky,” Gounardes said. “Standing here, one need only look down to see firsthand the destruction that had been wrought as papers and debris from the Trade Center site littered this pier.”

But, he said, remembrance must go beyond mourning.

“Twent-five years later, it is no longer sufficient for us just to mourn,” Gounardes said. “To grieve or to cry.”

With generations growing up without a personal memory of Sept. 11, he called on those who lived through the attacks and their aftermath to become stewards of that history.

“For us, the living, our responsibility is to no longer be just a witness to the history of September 11th, but to also be custodians of that history to make sure it is never lost,” Gounardes said.

“Our duty is not merely to be storytellers of that day, but to be custodians of that history. We must guard it and protect it. We must hold that history in trust for future generations so that they, too, can trace the still lingering scar of a wound that they have no memory of ever receiving.”

Colonel Raul M. Medrano, garrison commander of Fort Hamilton, also reflected on Brooklyn’s role in the response following the attacks.

“Fort Hamilton became a staging ground for personnel and equipment essential to the massive response that this city needed,” Medrano said.

He described the relationship between Fort Hamilton and the surrounding community as one built on mutual support in the years following the tragedy.

“You wrapped your arms around us and we in turn swore to keep standing watch over you. That is the story of Brooklyn. Not just what happened on that Tuesday morning, but what happened in the days, months and years after, when a neighborhood decided that grief would not have the final word,” Medrano said. “Resilience would.”

That resilience, he said, remains at the heart of the annual Bay Ridge gathering.

“As I look around tonight, I see something that I believe is uniquely Brooklyn. I see a community that has never stopped showing up,” Medrano said. “You refuse to let this moment fade into history. You refuse to let it become just a paragraph in a textbook.”

For Santosuosso, continuing to gather is itself an act of remembrance.

“When we look out for each other, when we help a neighbor in need, even when we attend events like this one, we are keeping the impact of our lost loved ones alive,” she said.

“We are showing that even in the face of inconceivable darkness and loss, our love for each other and the community we share wins out.”

Building on the success of its inaugural show in 2025, the “People’s Runway” returned to Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza on Sept. 12, transforming the public square into a vibrant runway spotlighting the bold and creative collections of five Brooklyn-based fashion designers.

Part of New York Fashion Week, the event became an instant cultural phenomenon last year and drew fashionistas, community members and celebs celebrating Brooklyn’s creativity and global cultural influence — the Brooklyn way, with no special VIP invitation required.

The fashion show is part of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s Arts Ambassador Initiative, which supports the borough’s vibrant creative community, mentors emerging artists, connects creatives with cultural institutions and expands access to the arts.

The Brooklyn Beep collaborated with Brooklyn’s first-ever Arts Ambassador, Colm Dillane — the creative mind behind KidSuper — to develop the event. The initiative aims to elevate emerging designers, help them “get their foot in the door” in an industry that is difficult to break into, and allow them to present their collections on a global stage.

“I wanted a culminating event to speak on arts in Brooklyn. And what we didn’t want to do was bring a bunch of established artists who aren’t from Brooklyn to come here and use the space,” Reynoso said. “So we talked about bringing five emerging artists from Brooklyn to be able to come on stage during New York Fashion Week, which I thought was deeply important.”

The Brooklyn Beep noted that the People’s Runway was the only NYFW event open to the public.

“Every other [NYFW] show is VIP, or you need to know somebody, or you got to be a part of the industry. So what you’re seeing here is 1000s of people that are going to show up to see a New York Fashion Week show for the first time, and we love that,” Reynoso said. “If you come to Brooklyn, you’ve got to do it for the Brooklyn people. You can’t come out here and only do it for exclusive VIP clients. Everybody’s VIP in Brooklyn.”

The crowd also got a surprise musical performance by music icons Wyclef Jean and Ms. Lauryn Hill at the end of the show — both wearing KidSuper designs — who dazzled the fashionistas with songs like “No Woman, No Cry” and the 1996 Fugees hit “Ready or Not,” celebrating 30 years since the release of the Fugees’ landmark 1996 album, “The Score.”

“Lauryn Hill being here,” Reynoso said. “She is one of my favorite rappers of all time.”

In June, Reynoso and Dillane launched an open call for emerging designers and, after reviewing hundreds of applications, selected Kuai Li, Lamin Rey Jaiteh, Laural Tiange Fang, Moses Aina and Roderick Reyes to showcase their collections.

In addition to a $5,000 grant from Borough President Reynoso, the designers also received matching funds from Converse and Cash App, totaling $15,000 for each designer. They also received mentorship from Dillane and other industry leaders leading up to the full-service fashion show, which included styling, hair and makeup, runway lighting and sound.

The designers wowed the crowd with their creativity, showcasing their collections for celebrities including Wale, Francisco Lindor, Fabulous, Ellie the Elephant, Beenie Man, Jim Jones, Lil Mama, Mark Vientos, Joey Bada$$, Wisdom Kaye, Serge Ibaka, Russ, Fivio Foreign, YG Marley, NLE Choppa, Huddy and more.

Li’s collection, “Tender Armor,” explored protection, vulnerability and the moment when quiet strength becomes visible. Jaiteh’s collection, “iDEK” (I Don’t Even Know), drew inspiration from a season of change, embracing the unknown and exploring the uncertainty that precedes transformation. Reyes’ collection, “Gettin’ Fly,” is a dialogue on modern survival and a critique of a broken system, playing on value, exploitation and capitalism.

Fashion designer Laurel Tiange Fang, founder of Laurel Blue, presented her collection, “Forms of Water,” a love letter to the ocean and an exploration of the relationship between human beings and the natural world. The Parsons graduate told Brooklyn Paper that she didn’t even know about the open call; her friend Ray submitted her application without her knowledge.

“He knew this existed, but he didn’t really want to let me down if I didn’t get selected, so he just [submitted my application], and he only told me after I got selected. I was like, ‘What is going on?’” Fang said, noting that the fashion show was a “fantastic” opportunity to get recognized. “Sometimes it can be very hard to get exposure for yourself. So I think Brooklyn has this platform to uplift emerging designers. I do feel very grateful, and I’m also like very happy that I’m part of it.”

Aina’s collection, “Legacy,” was inspired by her great-grandfather, President Sylvanus Olympio, Togo’s first president.

“I was inspired by how he not only thought about independence for the people of that country, but how he was also very good at striving for economic sovereignty from the French,” Aina said. “It really inspired me as his great-grandchild to be able to think about my own legacy.”

Colm Dillane, who also presented his fashion designs, told Brooklyn Paper that the brand had grown much bigger than he had anticipated, with one idea evolving into something bigger.

“I thought it’d be getting easier, and it’s not. It’s getting harder because our ideas get bigger, so maybe we’ve got to figure out how to streamline this,” Dillane said, noting that this year they added a surprise performance.

Fashionistas Busani and Bernard loved the concept of elevating designers who might not otherwise get the chance to present their collections to the world.

“I’m a photographer, so KidSuper inspires me with the art and creativity he brings. I flew all the way from Zimbabwe,” Busani told Brooklyn Paper. “This concept brings in people that will never have a chance outside of this; it gives room to everybody. It’s like a one-in-a-million chance [because] getting into fashion, it’s very difficult.”

Bernard shared that it was “wonderful” that the event was open to the public.

“The fashion industry is very inclusive. It’s very hard to get in; opening it up to the public definitely brings some excitement and definitely allows people to see the fashion world up close and firsthand,” he noted.

Dr. Jocelynne Rainey, president and CEO of BrooklynOrg, and Rick Davy, founder and CEO of Fashion Week Brooklyn, were looking forward to seeing what Brooklyn’s “amazing” talent had in store.

Rainey said the event reflected Brooklyn Org’s mission to ensure the entire community could enjoy what Brooklyn has to offer.

“I am so excited that this is in Brooklyn, and I love that it is for Brooklyn residents; it is so fabulous. Brooklyn deserves it,” Rainey said. “It is the most populated borough, and to see so many Brooklynites here enjoying this day and being part of Fashion Week, which has always traditionally been about Manhattan, is amazing to me, and is so aligned with the things that we think about at BrooklynOrg.”

“It’s good to be doing this again in Brooklyn during New York Fashion Week. You can’t get better than that,” Davy said. “We own Brooklyn, and we bring in a little bit of New York Fashion Week to Brooklyn.”

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