TOPEKA — Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of 15 states in an attempt to block President Joe Biden from expanding access to health care for DACA recipients by making them eligible to participate in the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplace .
Kobach, a Republican who built a political career centered on legal issues related to undocumented migrants, was joined in the federal lawsuit by attorneys general in Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio , South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia.
Kobach challenged a federal rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that would have made people who arrived in the United States as children, sometimes known as Dreamers, eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health plans under the ACA. The Biden administration's initiative would allow DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to be part of the health insurance marketplace on Nov. 1.
The lawsuit urged the federal court to delay the effective date of the HHS rule pending the conclusion of the case. He also sought to strike down the rule as “unlawful and unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious.”
“Illegal aliens should not get a free pass into our country,” Kobach said, using an offensive term for undocumented residents. “They shouldn't be getting taxpayer benefits when they arrive, and the Biden-Harris administration shouldn't be getting a free pass to break federal law.” That's why I'm filing a multi-state lawsuit to stop this illegal ordinance from going into effect.
Kobach said in the U.S. District Court complaint filed in North Dakota that the administration of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris intended to violate a federal law prohibiting the flow of government aid to people who are not citizens of the United States or otherwise were in the country illegally.
He said that in 1996, Congress limited eligibility for federal public benefits to certain “qualified aliens.” DACA recipients were not included in the definition of skilled immigrants, he said. Additionally, Kobach's filing said Congress limited eligibility for the ACA's qualified health plans to “citizens or nationals” of the United States or “aliens lawfully residing in the United States.”
“Indeed, eligibility for DACA requires unlawful presence in the United States,” Kobach's petition said.
Xavier Becerra, the HHS secretary, said when the DACA final rule was published in May that the change could result in 100,000 previously uninsured DACA recipients enrolling in health coverage through the marketplaces.
“HHS is committed to making health coverage affordable for DACA recipients — Dreamers — who have worked hard to live the American dream,” Becerra said. “Dreamers are our neighbors and friends. They are students, teachers, social workers, doctors and nurses. More importantly, they are fellow Americans.
Kobach argued that the HHS rule would make up to 200,000 DACA recipients eligible for health insurance through the marketplace. His DACA total includes 4,350 in Kansas and 2,550 in Missouri. With respect to other plaintiff states, the numbers ranged from 7,810 in Virginia, 7,450 in Indiana, 6,360 in Tennessee, and 4,840 in South Carolina to 220 in New Hampshire, 130 in North Dakota, and 80 in Montana.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the expansion of health insurance through the ACA to 3,460 DACA recipients in Alabama represents another “attack on the American worker.”
“First, this administration required hard-working Americans to pay for someone else's college degree, then it forced them to pay for medical procedures that violate their beliefs, and now they want to dictate the payment of health care for people who shouldn't even to be in this country,” Marshall said.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said the lawsuit was needed to defeat the Biden administration's unconstitutional move to expand Obamacare.
“I sympathize with those people who didn't choose to be brought here,” Wilson said. “However, this is yet another example of the Biden administration trying to do something it doesn't have the authority to do.”