Opinion ID: 1551127
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Level of Judicial Scrutiny to be Accorded to the Appellants' Action in the Equal Protection Analysis

Text: Appellants assert that the Circuit Court erred in granting the preliminary injunction because Appellees lacked a real probability of prevailing on the merits of their Article 24 claim. Appellants contend that their failure to appropriate funds for medical benefits to a subcategory of legal aliens who, by virtue of congressional action under PRWORA, were ineligible to receive federal medical benefits is subject to rational basis review under the Supremacy Clause and withstands Appellees' equal protection challenge under that standard. Under the Supremacy Clause, Appellants contend, consideration of Appellees' state constitutional claim requires judicial deference to Congress' plenary power over naturalization and immigration policy. Relying on Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 96 S.Ct. 1883, 48 L.Ed.2d 478 (1976), and Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 97 S.Ct. 1473, 52 L.Ed.2d 50 (1977), Appellants argue that Congress' power over the admission and naturalization of aliens is complete and broad such that Congress' actions are subject to narrow judicial scrutiny. Although conceding that the State may not exercise independently a like power over aliens, Appellants maintain that, in adopting the Welfare Reform Act, Congress prescribed a uniform rule for the treatment of an alien sub-class in regard to the provision of medical benefits, which Maryland could follow, citing as support Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 219 n. 19, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2396 n. 19, 72 L.Ed.2d 786, 800 n. 19 (1982), Toll v. Moreno, 458 U.S. 1, 102 S.Ct. 2977, 73 L.Ed.2d 563 (1982), DeCanas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351, 358 n. 6, 96 S.Ct. 933, 47 L.Ed.2d 43 (1976), and Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 29 L.Ed.2d 534 (1971). It is necessary to apply this relaxed standard of scrutiny to both federal and state laws that follow a federal classification because [i]t would make no sense to say that Congress has plenary power in the area of immigration and naturalization and then hold that the Constitution compels the states to refrain from adhering to the federal guidelines [when a state denies state-funded welfare benefits to certain aliens], quoting Sudomir v. McMahon, 767 F.2d 1456, 1466 (9th Cir.1985) (applying rational basis review in rejecting equal protection challenge to the State's denial of State-funded welfare benefits to a sub-class of aliens). Appellants offer that the reason for the Maryland budget cut was to achieve a cost savings of seven million dollars (equal to the amount of funds appropriated in the Medical Assistance Program in Fiscal Year (FY) 2005, inclusive of the estimated number of individuals of the legal alien sub-class to which Appellees belong) of the four billion dollar budget appropriated for medical assistance health care costs generally. They maintain that Congress provided a sufficient showing of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason to discriminate against the relevant alien sub-class in the provision of federal Medicaid benefits, by including legislative findings in the Welfare Reform Act. These legislative findings provide that the provisions of the Welfare Reform Act were necessary to achieve the national immigration policy of encouraging self-sufficiency and removing incentives for illegal immigration. The Act's findings also provide that a State choosing not to provide non-emergency medical benefits to aliens excluded from federal benefits by the Welfare Reform Act, as Maryland did in the FY 2006 Budget, shall be considered to have chosen the least restrictive means available for achieving the compelling governmental interest of assuring that aliens be self-reliant in accordance with national immigration policy, quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1601(7). Appellants argue that the Supremacy Clause restrains Maryland State courts from disregarding Congress' direction in this area of immigration policy. Finally, as to the correct standard of review to be applied to the Article 24 challenge, Appellants assert that the Welfare Reform Act grants Maryland the ability to determine whether and to what extent it will use State funds to provide non-emergency medical benefits to resident aliens who do not meet the five-year residency requirement, see 8 U.S.C. §§ 1622(a), 1624(a), provided that any prohibitions, limitations, or restrictions imposed by Maryland are not more restrictive than the prohibitions, limitations, or restrictions imposed under comparable federal programs, see 8 U.S.C § 1624(b). [9] Appellees, on the other hand, maintain (as Appellants seem to concede) that the budget cut of State-funded medical assistance to certain resident aliens was a classification based upon alienage, and is therefore a suspect classification, relying on Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. 342, 601 A.2d 102 (1992), and Graham, supra, 403 U.S. 365, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 29 L.Ed.2d 534. Appellees argue that, because Appellants used a classification based on alienage in cutting State-funded medical assistance to the relevant sub-class of legal aliens depending on their length of residency in the United States, a court reviewing the State action must apply the strict scrutiny standard, see, e.g., Graham, 403 U.S. at 370-76, 91 S.Ct. at 1851-54, 29 L.Ed.2d at 540-44, Nyquist v. Mauclet, 432 U.S. 1, 8, 97 S.Ct. 2120, 2125, 53 L.Ed.2d 63, 70 (1977), and Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm'n., 334 U.S. 410, 418-22, 68 S.Ct. 1138, 1142-44, 92 L.Ed. 1478, 1486-89 (1948). Appellees and Appellants agree that if Congress prescribed a truly uniform rule or standards for the treatment of aliens and a State abided by that rule or applied properly those standards when it chose to discriminate against or between resident aliens within its territory, a reviewing court should apply a rational basis scrutiny to determine whether the State action violated equal protection rights. The parties part ways thereafter. Appellees assert that PRWORA provides no uniform rule or evaluative standards with regard to decisions involving State-funded medical assistance programs because PRWORA leaves unbridled discretion to the individual States to decide how each will treat the class of resident aliens that immigrated to the United States on or after 22 August 1996 and therefore have not resided in the United States for five years. Thus, Appellees argue that the appropriate standard of review of the State action here is strict scrutiny. Furthermore, Appellees contend that Appellants' reason for the budget cut (cost savings) is not a sufficiently compelling state interest to justify its discrimination against an alien sub-class when fashioning its medical assistance plan budget, citing, e.g., Graham, 403 U.S. at 374, 91 S.Ct. at 1853-54, 29 L.Ed.2d at 543 ([A] State's desire to preserve limited welfare benefits for its own citizens is inadequate to justify . . . making noncitizens ineligible for public assistance benefits . . . and restricting benefits to citizens and longtime resident aliens.), and Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969). Appellees bring to our attention that a similar medical assistance funding restriction adopted in New York, based on alienage, was found to be unconstitutional, under state and federal equal protection guarantees, in Aliessa v. Novello, 96 N.Y.2d 418, 730 N.Y.S.2d 1, 754 N.E.2d 1085 (2001). The Court of Appeals of New York in Aliessa concluded that, in contrast to the federal government, States may only discriminate against immigrants in State-funded programs if the federal government has prescribed by uniform rule what it believes to be appropriate standards for the treatment of an alien sub-class, citing language from footnote 19 in Plyler v. Doe. Aliessa, 754 N.E.2d at 1096 (discussing Graham). The court concluded that, by enacting PRWORA, Congress did not establish a uniform rule for States regarding the provision of medical assistance to legal immigrants because Congress left to the States' discretion the development of their own individualized policies regarding the provision of State-funded medical assistance to legal immigrants. Aliessa, 754 N.E.2d at 1098. Because New York's termination of State-funded benefits to resident aliens was not pursuant to a uniform federal rule or set of criteria, our sister high court reviewed the State action under the strict scrutiny test, concluded that it did not pass that review, and held that the State action violated the Equal Protection guarantees of the federal and New York constitutions. Id. The legal reasoning applied by the court in Aliessa applies, it is submitted by Appellees, with equal force to the present case.