Gov. Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman say New York will sue over President Donald Trump's decision to end a program protecting young immigrants brought into the country illegally as children.
The two Democrats say ending the program allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to remain in the United States is cruel and unwarranted.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday the administration will stop accepting new applications for President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Congress will get six months to pass a new version before officials stop renewing permits for people already covered by the program.
Cuomo says New York can't sit "on the sidelines" while families are ripped apart.
A Schneiderman spokeswoman did not immediately respond Tuesday to questions about the lawsuit's timing.
Meanwhile, civil rights groups in New York are also seeking to legally challenge the DACA rollback.
The groups asked a federal judge Tuesday to piggyback on an existing lawsuit in Brooklyn, which contests the way the DACA is administered.
Groups including Yale Law School students, the National Immigration Law Center and the anti-poverty group Make the Road New York say Trump's rollback of the program violates the Constitution because it is based on discrimination over race, ethnicity or national origin.
The lawyers cited “vulgar animus toward Latino immigrants in general” by President Trump.
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the administration is ending the DACA program because it believed it was “an unconstitutional exercise of authority.”
