Opinion ID: 4553022
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Explanation for Changed Definition

Text: DHS justifies its revised definition of “public charge” – one who uses a relevant public benefit for more than twelve months in the aggregate – as a “superior interpretation of the statute to the 1999 Interim Field Guidance” because it “furthers congressional intent behind both the public charge inadmissibility statute and PRWORA in ensuring that aliens . . . be self-sufficient and not reliant on public resources.” 84 Fed. Reg. at 41,319. “In fact, DHS believes it would be contrary to congressional intent to promulgate regulations that . . . 33 Because we find the Plaintiffs likely to succeed on this basis, we do not address the Plaintiffs’ additional contentions that we could find the Rule arbitrary and capricious based on its aggregation principle, selection of factors indicative of future benefits use, or cost-benefit analysis. 85 ignore the[] receipt” of the benefits listed in the Rule “as this would be contrary to Congress’s intent in ensuring that aliens within the United States are selfsufficient.” Id. at 41,318 (citing the PRWORA policy statements at 8 U.S.C. § 1601(2)(A)); see, e.g., id. at 41,295, 41,305, 41,308. In short, DHS justifies its changed interpretation as necessary to implement Congress’s view that “the receipt of any public benefits, including noncash benefits, [is] indicative of a lack of self-sufficiency.” Appellants’ Br. at 43. This explanation fails for the same reasons as DHS’s related argument that the PRWORA policy statements show that the Rule is consistent with Congress’s intended meaning of “public charge.” See supra Section II.B.6. As we discussed above, the PRWORA policy statements do show a congressional interest in ensuring non-citizen self-sufficiency. See 8 U.S.C. § 1601(1), (2). But the statements also show that, contrary to DHS’s belief, Congress’s vision of self-sufficiency does not anticipate abstention from all benefits use. See Cook Cty., 962 F.3d at 232 (rejecting DHS’s “absolutist sense of self-sufficiency that no person in a modern society could satisfy”). Rather, Congress realized its notion of self-sufficiency with a new benefits eligibility scheme that greatly reduced – but did not eliminate – non-citizen eligibility for public benefits. See 8 U.S.C. § 1601(7) 86 (describing the PRWORA eligibility scheme as “achieving the compelling governmental interest of assuring that aliens be self-reliant in accordance with national immigration policy”). “The Supreme Court and [other] court[s] have consistently reminded agencies that they are bound, not only by the ultimate purposes Congress has selected, but by the means it has deemed appropriate, and prescribed, for the pursuit of those purposes.” Gresham v. Azar, 950 F.3d 93, 101 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). Had Congress thought that any benefits use was incompatible with selfsufficiency, it could have said so, either by making non-citizens ineligible for all such benefits or by making those who did receive them inadmissible. But it did not. We are thus left with an agency justification that is unmoored from the nuanced views of Congress. See Yale-New Haven Hosp. v. Leavitt, 470 F.3d 71, 85-86 (2d Cir. 2006) (finding agency failed to provide reasoned explanation as to “how adoption of a per se coverage standard comports with congressional purposes in enacting the Medicare Act,” which prioritized individualized care determinations). As the Supreme Court has explained, no legislation pursues its purposes at all costs. Deciding what competing values will or will not be sacrificed to the achievement of a particular objective is the very essence of 87 legislative choice – and it frustrates rather than effectuates legislative intent simplistically to assume that whatever furthers the statute’s primary objective must be the law. Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U.S. 522, 525-26 (1987) (emphasis omitted). DHS’s misconception of the PRWORA policy statements and Congress’s intended notion of self-sufficiency is its principal justification for its revised definition; it identifies no other “deficienc[y]” in the 1999 Guidance, apart from its limited list of relevant benefits, discussed below. See 84 Fed. Reg. at 41,319; see also id. at 41,349 (describing the Guidance’s interpretation as “suboptimal when considered in relation to the goals of the INA and PRWORA”). To be sure, we do not suggest that DHS must, as a general matter, show that the Guidance was deficient or that the Rule is necessarily a better interpretation than the prior policy reflected in the Guidance to avoid being found arbitrary and capricious. See FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 515 (2009) (clarifying that agencies are not required to show “that the reasons for the new policy are better than the reasons for the old one”). Nor do we suggest that, when an agency offers a statutory interpretation as part of its reason for adopting a policy, and a reviewing court later rejects the agency’s statutory interpretation, that the policy is per se arbitrary and capricious. But where, as 88 here, DHS anchors its decision to change its interpretation in the perceived shortcomings of the prior interpretation, and then fails to identify any actual defect, it has not provided a “reasoned explanation” for its actions – particularly when it bases its changed position on its reading of a statute, and it is the new Rule, rather than the old Guidance, that strays from congressional intent. Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 136 S. Ct. 2117, 2125 (2016).