BASKET OF REPUGNANTS:

An 1893 cartoon titled "Looking Backward" depicts the irony of American immigrants turning away additional newcomers. The caption reads: "They would close to the new-comer the bridge that carried them and their fathers over."

In a written decision filled with unmasked contempt, a federal judge blocked on Friday a Trump administration policy designed to punish poor and working-class immigrants. The "public charge" rule, which was set to take effect on Tuesday, would deny green cards to immigrants deemed likely to use public benefits, to which they are legally entitled. 

District court judge George Daniels was unusually critical of the arguments the Justice Department used to justify radically reinterpreting what it means to be a public charge, a part of federal immigration law that dates back to 1882. "In short," Daniels wrote, "defendants do not articulate why they are changing the public charge definition, why this new definition is needed now, or why the definition set forth in the Rule--which has absolutely no support in the history of U.S. immigration law--is reasonable." (A California district judge court issued a second injunction on Friday that, unlike Daniels', does not apply nationwide.)  

Daniels wrote that the rule released by the Department of Homeland Security in August "is simply a new agency policy of exclusion in search of a justification." He continued, "It is repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility." [...]

The judge was particularly critical of a section of the rule that penalizes immigrants who do not speak English. "The United States of America has no official language," Daniels noted. "Many, if not most, immigrants who arrived at these shores did not speak English. It is simply offensive to contend that English proficiency is a valid predictor of self-sufficiency."

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