A person walks in front of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse which houses the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in New York City, U.S., January 3, 2026. Image@ REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
Immigrant advocacy groups that spent years battling Trump-era restrictions on green card eligibility have lost their bid to recoup nearly $1.4 million in legal costs, after a Manhattan federal judge ruled they did not meet the legal threshold to claim taxpayer-funded fees.
U.S. District Judge George Daniels on Wednesday dismissed the fee application filed by several organisations including Make the Road New York, which had successfully challenged immigration rules from President Donald Trump’s first term that made it harder for certain immigrants to obtain permanent residency. The so-called “public charge” rule had expanded the criteria immigration caseworkers could use to deny green card applications, targeting legal immigrants who used government benefits or were deemed likely to rely on welfare programmes in the future. Judge Daniels himself had once blocked the rule, famously declaring it “repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility.”
But that earlier victory has now come back to haunt the groups in an unexpected way. Daniels ruled that because the Biden administration rescinded the contested immigration rules in 2021 before any final judgment was issued, the plaintiffs never achieved an “enduring” legal victory, the bar required to qualify as “prevailing parties” under the federal Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). The act permits individuals and small organisations to recover limited legal costs from the federal government in certain cases.
The ruling turned on a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that winning a preliminary injunction alone does not make a group or individual a “prevailing party” eligible for fees if the litigation ends before a ruling on the merits. In applying that precedent, Daniels overturned the findings of U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang, who had concluded the Supreme Court order did not govern the case and that the EAJA contains its own definition of “prevailing party.”
The Justice Department had backed Daniels’ approach, urging him to block the fees and arguing both that its legal positions in the cases were substantially justified and that the recommended award was excessive. Law firm Paul Weiss, which was among the legal representatives seeking fees for its work on the cases, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Make the Road New York and the Justice Department also did not immediately respond.
The ruling comes as the EAJA faces fresh scrutiny. With hundreds of lawsuits against Trump’s second administration now winding down, successful plaintiffs and their attorneys are increasingly pursuing fee awards funded by taxpayers, putting the statute’s provisions under renewed judicial and political examination.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah