By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) - The Democratic attorneys general of 14 U.S. states moved on Wednesday to take over the defense in court of a rule by the outgoing Biden administration providing health insurance to immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
Led by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, the officials said in a filing in North Dakota federal court that the administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump will likely not defend it from a challenge by Republican-led states. Trump criticized the 2024 rule while campaigning.
A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the rule from being applied in the states that sued while the case proceeds.
The Democratic officials said that without the rule, their states will be forced to absorb the costs of providing medical services to thousands of uninsured immigrants while losing revenue from premiums paid to state-run insurance exchanges.
"This case requires parties who are willing and situated to defend the Final Rule," they said. Platkin was joined by the attorneys general of California, Illinois, Maryland and Michigan, among other states.
The office of Republican Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, which is leading the legal challenge to the rule, and the U.S. Department of Justice, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did a representative of Trump's transition team.
The rule classifies participants in the Deferred Action (WA:ACT) for Childhood Arrivals program created in 2012 as "legally present" in the United States, allowing them to enroll in basic healthcare programs created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
But the Republican-led states said in their lawsuit that because individuals have to lack legal status to enroll in DACA, they are by definition not legally present in the country. Nearly 50,000 DACA recipients live in the 19 states involved in the lawsuit.
Trump tried to end DACA during his first term but was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Trump campaign criticized the healthcare rule in May, calling it "unfair and unsustainable."