United States Second Circuit

The Welfare Reform Act, which prohibited female illegal aliens from receiving Medicaid-sponsored prenatal care, is constitutional with respect to alien mothers but their citizen children are entitled to automatic eligibility for Medicaid benefits for a year after birth.

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/05/2000
• Decided 07/27/2001
• Published 07/30/2001

Judges

• JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge., Before NEWMAN, KEARSE, and WINTER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• (Beth D. Jacob, Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, New York, N.Y., submitted a brief for amici curiae Am. Coll. of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Am. Med. Ass'n, Am. Pub. Health Ass'n, Greater N.Y. March of Dimes Birth Defects Found., N.Y. State Pub. Health Ass'n, N.Y. Academy of Med., Pub. Health Ass'n of N.Y. City, Am. Academy of Pediatrics, N.Y. Obstetrical Soc.).


• For Appellees:
  
• Thomas M. Bondy, Wash., D.C. (David W. Ogden, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Mark B. Stern, Dep't of Justice, Wash., D.C.;  Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Atty., Brooklyn, N.Y., on the brief), for defendant-appellant., Richard Blum, New York, N.Y. (Helaine M. Barnett, Scott A. Rosenberg, The Legal Aid Soc'y, New York, N.Y., on the brief), for plaintiff-appellee., Michael D. Hess, Gail Rubin, Elizabeth S. Natrella, N.Y. City Corp. Counsel, New York, N.Y., on the brief, for intervenors-plaintiffs-appellees., Eliot Spitzer, N.Y. State Atty. Gen., Mary Fisher Bernet, Marion R. Buchbinder, New York, N.Y., on the brief, for defendant-appellee.