The Department of Homeland Security’s public charge rule is in effect as of today, Friday, September 18, 2026. No court stepped in before the deadline. USCIS marked the change this morning with a technical update to Volume 8, Part G of its Policy Manual, which now carries the guidance from the Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility final rule (91 FR 45324, published July 20, 2026), effective today. The 09/18/26 edition of Form I-485 is now the only edition USCIS accepts for adjustment applications postmarked or submitted electronically on or after today. There is no grace period.
Litigation continued right up to the deadline. The federal docket in the Southern District of New York shows a third lawsuit against the rule. Make the Road New York v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:26-cv-08129) was filed September 17, one day before the effective date. A request for summons and a notice of appearance followed this morning. It joins the two government suits filed September 14. One is State of New York v. DHS (No. 1:26-cv-07978), brought by New York with 21 other states and the District of Columbia and assigned to U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams. The other is City of New York v. DHS (No. 1:26-cv-07982), brought by New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, King County and Santa Clara County. Make the Road, a New York immigrant-rights organization, spoke at the cities’ September 14 press conference. It now has its own case. It was also a lead plaintiff in the 2019 public charge litigation in the same court.
The timing matters more than the number of cases. As of this writing, none of the three dockets shows a motion for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction in the public record. According to an Associated Press report published today, Judge Abrams has set the initial conference in the states’ case for October 9. That is a routine scheduling step, not an emergency hearing. Court records here are incomplete, and a motion could still be filed at any time. The likeliest path, though, is weeks of litigation with the rule in force, not a last-minute halt like the one that stopped the Duration of Status rule on September 14.
What this means for green card applicants. Filings postmarked or submitted on or before September 17 are decided under the 2022 framework. Anything filed from today onward is judged under the new standard. Officers can now consider a much wider range of means-tested benefits, including Medicaid, SNAP, housing assistance and some benefits received by household members, when deciding whether an applicant is likely to become a public charge. DHS’s own regulatory analysis projected that about 950,000 people would leave benefit programs because of the rule. The public charge ground mainly affects family-based and some employment-based adjustment applicants. Beneficiaries of an approved EB-2 NIW or EB-1A petition who file an I-485 should still use the new form edition and expect the updated financial questions.
Practical steps: download Form I-485 from uscis.gov on the day you file, not from a saved copy. Confirm the edition date reads 09/18/26. Keep records of any benefits received and when they ended. If one of the SDNY courts does act later, USCIS has shown this month, with the I-765 and I-539 editions, that it can reverse form changes within a day. Check the form page again right before you mail anything.
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Source: Primary source sweep - CourtListener SDNY docket 1:26-cv-08129 + USCIS Policy Manual updates