Bruns v. Mayhew , 750 F.3d 61 ( 2014 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-1456
HANS BRUNS and KADRA HASSAN, on behalf of themselves
and other similarly situated individuals,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
MARY MAYHEW, Commissioner,
Maine Department of Health and Human Services,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Stahl and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Jennifer A. Archer, with whom Kelly Remmel & Zimmerman, Jack
Comart, Maine Equal Justice Partners, Zachary L. Heiden and ACLU of
Maine Foundation were on brief, for appellants.
Justin B. Barnard, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Janet
T. Mills, Attorney General, and Doris A. Harnett, Assistant
Attorney General, were on brief, for appellee.
April 28, 2014
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. After Congress passed the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996 ("PRWORA"), narrowing the eligibility of non-citizens for
Medicaid and other federal benefits, the state of Maine responded
in 1997 by extending state-funded medical assistance benefits to
certain legal aliens rendered ineligible for Medicaid. In 2011,
the Maine Legislature terminated these benefits. The appellants
allege that this termination of their benefits violated their
rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, and presently appeal from the district court's denial of
their motion for a preliminary injunction. Finding no
constitutional violation, we affirm the district court's denial of
a preliminary injunction and remand for dismissal.
I.
Medicaid is a cooperative federal-state program created
in 1965 as an amendment to the Social Security Act in order to help
states provide publicly-funded medical assistance to certain needy
citizens. See Nat'l Fed'n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius, 132 S. Ct.
2566, 2581 (2012). A state's participation in the Medicaid program
is voluntary, but once a state chooses to participate it must
comply with federal statutory and regulatory requirements in order
to receive federal matching funds. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396-1, 1396a,
1396b, 1396c; id. at 2581; id. at 2601, 2604 (Roberts, C.J., joined
by Breyer and Kagan, JJ.); Frew ex rel. Frew v. Hawkins, 540 U.S.
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431, 433 (2004). The eligibility requirements for Medicaid
coverage are governed by federal law. Under the Medicaid Act,
participating states must provide full Medicaid services under the
approved state plan to certain groups of individuals who meet the
eligibility criteria, including "categorically needy" groups. See
42 U.S.C. §§ 1396a(a)(10)(A)(I), 1396d(a); Lewis v. Thompson, 252
F.3d 567, 570 (2d Cir. 2001). For years, federal Medicaid extended
medical assistance to eligible individuals without regard to
citizenship status or durational residency. By act of Congress,
however, the alien eligibility requirements for publicly-funded
benefits, including Medicaid, changed dramatically in 1996. See 8
U.S.C. §§ 1601-1646.
In enacting PRWORA, Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105(1996) (also known as the "Welfare Reform Act"), Congress
restricted the ability of aliens to access federal public welfare
benefits, including Medicaid. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1611, 1612, 1621,
1622. PRWORA divided non-citizens into categories of "qualified"
and "non-qualified" aliens, see id. §§ 1611, 1641(b), and further
restricted eligibility for federal welfare benefits by imposing a
five-year United States residency requirement for most qualified
aliens, see id. § 1613. Although PRWORA authorized states to
expand the category of qualified aliens eligible for federal
benefits, it prohibited the states from extending federal benefits
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to most aliens residing in the United States for less than five
years. See id. § 1612(b).1
PRWORA left the states more discretion in the
dispensation of state public benefits, authorizing the states "to
determine the eligibility for any State public benefits of an alien
who is a qualified alien," including qualified aliens residing less
than five years in the United States. Id. § 1622(a). The Maine
Legislature accordingly responded to PRWORA by enacting Public Law
1997, chapter 530, section A-16 (the "1997 State Legislation,"
codified at Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 22, § 3762(3)(B)(2), as amended),
which empowered the state Department of Health and Human Services
("DHHS") to provide medical assistance benefits to PRWORA-
ineligible aliens residing in Maine. Although these benefits were
purely state-funded, this program was jointly administered with the
federal-state cooperative Medicaid program for eligible citizens
and qualified aliens, and both the state-funded program and the
state Medicaid program became known as "MaineCare." In June 2011,
however, the Maine Legislature passed Public Law 2011, chapter 380,
section KK-4 (the "2011 State Legislation"), a budgetary measure
that terminated state-funded non-emergency medical assistance
benefits for PRWORA-ineligible aliens residing less than five years
in the United States, essentially repealing the 1997 State
1
We refer throughout this opinion to aliens absolutely barred
from federal benefits by PRWORA's five-year residency requirement
(such as the appellants here) as "PRWORA-ineligible aliens."
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Legislation. In September 2011, DHHS sent form termination notices
to approximately 500 non-citizens, informing them that their
MaineCare benefits were being terminated and that they would remain
eligible only for emergency care benefits.
The appellants Hans Bruns and Kadra Hassan represent a
class of PRWORA-ineligible aliens residing in Maine and rendered
ineligible for non-emergency medical assistance benefits as a
result of the 2011 State Legislation. Bruns filed this class
action complaint against Mary Mayhew in her official capacity as
the Commissioner of DHHS in April 2012, and moved for a preliminary
injunction against enforcement of the 2011 State Legislation. In
the complaint, Bruns alleged that the state violated the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by continuing to
provide MaineCare benefits to United States citizens while denying
those benefits to similarly situated non-citizens due solely to
their alienage.
The Commissioner opposed the motion for a preliminary
injunction, and also filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. In
November 2012, the district court denied without prejudice the
Commissioner's motion to dismiss. Although the relevant
legislative history and statutory provisions strongly suggested
that the appellants were not similarly situated to United States
citizens and eligible aliens receiving Medicaid and thus that they
were not treated unequally by the state of Maine, the district
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court concluded that this determination ultimately came too close
to a factual finding and was therefore inappropriate to resolve on
a motion to dismiss.
In March 2013, the district court denied the appellants'
motion for a preliminary injunction. The court found that the
state had effectively operated two separate medical assistance
programs and that the appellants, as PRWORA-ineligible aliens
receiving separately-funded benefits from a state program, were not
similarly situated to recipients of federal Medicaid. Accordingly,
the court concluded that the appellants were unlikely to succeed on
the merits of their equal protection claim. Secondarily, the court
also concluded that the appellants had not established a potential
for irreparable harm. This appeal followed.
II.
"We review the denial of a preliminary injunction under
a deferential standard, reversing only upon finding a mistake of
law, a clear error in fact-finding, or other abuse of discretion."
Nat'l Org. for Marriage v. Daluz, 654 F.3d 115, 117 (1st Cir.
2011). To obtain a preliminary injunction, a plaintiff "must
establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is
likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary
relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an
injunction is in the public interest." Winter v. Natural Res. Def.
Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). We have recognized the first
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two factors, likelihood of success and of irreparable harm, as "the
most important" in the calculus. González-Droz v. González-Colón,
573 F.3d 75, 79 (1st Cir. 2009). The appellants argue that the
district court erred in concluding that they had demonstrated
neither a likelihood of success on the merits of their equal
protection challenge nor a likelihood of irreparable harm absent a
preliminary injunction. Because we hold that the appellants cannot
succeed on the merits of their claim, we need not consider the
likelihood of irreparable harm.
The appellants argue that the termination of their state-
funded medical benefits under the 2011 Legislation represented
selective alienage-based treatment by the state of Maine. In the
appellants' estimation, the state's action discriminated against a
suspect class and therefore warrants strict scrutiny, requiring the
state to demonstrate that the alienage classification advances a
compelling state interest by the least restrictive means available.
The Commissioner advances no argument that the 2011 State
Legislation would survive strict scrutiny. Instead, the crux of
the Commissioner's defense, and of the district court's ruling, is
that Maine did not discriminate against aliens and in favor of
citizens at all. The Commissioner suggests that the only alienage-
based distinction implicated in this case was the one drawn by
Congress in PRWORA, a distinction subject only to deferential
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rational basis review in light of the federal government's broad
authority over immigration and naturalization.
This case thus intertwines a core question of equal
protection jurisprudence, concerning the proper scope of comparison
in determining whether a plaintiff is similarly situated to another
group or entity treated more favorably under the law, with notions
of federalism concerning the respective roles of federal and state
governments in immigration policy and Medicaid alike. Before
turning to the merits of this case, we therefore pause to limn some
overarching equal protection principles in the context of alienage.
A. Equal Protection Framework
In order to establish an equal protection violation, a
plaintiff must show state-imposed disparate treatment compared with
others similarly situated "'in all relevant respects.'" Barrington
Cove Ltd. P'ship v. R.I. Hous. & Mortg. Fin. Corp., 246 F.3d 1, 8
(1st Cir. 2001) (quoting Dartmouth Review v. Dartmouth Coll., 889
F.2d 13, 19 (1st Cir. 1989), overruled on other grounds by
Educadores Puertorriqueños en Acción v. Hernández, 367 F.3d 61 (1st
Cir. 2004)). In determining whether two groups are similarly
situated, we have identified the somewhat imprecise test as
"whether a prudent person, looking objectively . . . would think
them roughly equivalent." Dartmouth Review, 889 F.2d at 19. Put
differently, "the proponent of the equal protection violation must
show that the parties with whom he seeks to be compared have
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engaged in the same activity vis-à-vis the government entity
without such distinguishing or mitigating circumstances as would
render the comparison inutile." Cordi-Allen v. Conlon, 494 F.3d
245, 251 (1st Cir. 2007).
Alienage, like race and nationality, constitutes a
suspect classification under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Graham
v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 372 (1971) (invalidating state-imposed
alienage-based classifications). Because "[a]liens as a class are
a prime example of a 'discrete and insular' minority," a state's
alienage-based classifications inherently raise concerns of
invidious discrimination and are therefore generally subject to
strict judicial scrutiny. Id. (quoting United States v. Carolene
Prods. Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152-53 n.4 (1938)). Though states
traditionally enjoy broad power to regulate economics and social
welfare, even the otherwise "valid interest in preserving the
fiscal integrity of [state] programs" is generally insufficient
grounds for a state-imposed burden on alienage to survive an equal
protection challenge. Id. at 374-75.
The calculus is markedly different for congressional acts
distinguishing on the basis of alienage, evaluated under the Due
Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. See Mathews v. Díaz, 426
U.S. 67, 80-85 (1976) (holding that congressional alienage-based
restrictions on federal Medicare benefits did not violate due
process). Unlike other suspect classifications such as race and
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nationality, congressional disparate treatment of aliens is
presumed to rest on national immigration policy rather than
invidious discrimination. See id. at 79-80. Because Congress acts
with plenary authority when it legislates the rights and benefits
to be afforded aliens present in this country, such congressional
acts are appropriately afforded rational basis judicial review.
See id. at 80-85. States do not share in this plenary federal
power, though they obviously are impacted by its exercise. See
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 225 (1982); Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong,
426 U.S. 88, 95 (1976) ("Congress and the President have broad
power over immigration and naturalization which the States do not
possess."). The Supreme Court has, however, stated that "if the
Federal Government has by uniform rule prescribed what it believes
to be appropriate standards for the treatment of an alien subclass,
the States may, of course, follow the federal direction." Plyler,
457 U.S. at 219 n.19.
Because Medicaid, unlike Medicare, is not solely funded
and administered by the federal government, this case does not fall
neatly within the holding of Mathews. On the other hand, the
alienage-based distinction in this case does not originate purely
from state legislation, unlike the restrictions struck down in
Graham. Instead, this case presents a Gordian knot of federal and
state legislation effecting an adverse impact on resident aliens:
a federal-state cooperative program (Medicaid), the eligibility for
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which was subsequently limited on the basis of alienage by federal
legislation (PRWORA), to which the state of Maine responded by
first creating, and then terminating, supplemental state-funded
medical assistance benefits for PRWORA-ineligible aliens only. We
now examine this state legislation in more detail in order to
properly evaluate the equal protection claim before us.
B. MaineCare
In concluding that the appellants were unlikely to
succeed on the merits of their equal protection claim, the district
court explained that "because there were two separate programs [in
Maine] distributing medical benefits to Medicaid-ineligible
qualified aliens and citizens . . . [and] citizens were statutorily
unable to receive health benefits under the same state-sponsored
program, the Plaintiffs are unable [to] show [that] they were
similarly situated with citizens for equal protection purposes."
Bruns v. Mayhew, 931 F. Supp. 2d 260, 273 (D. Me. 2013). It
arrived at this conclusion after a thorough analysis of the
"[c]ontours of the [d]isputed [p]rograms," noting inter alia that
"[t]he statutorily mandated separate funding structures for
MaineCare, which receives federal and state funds, and the aliens-
only program, which received only state funds post-PRWORA, is the
first indicator of [the programs'] independence"; that these
separate funding structures "also signify that the programs were
separately controlled by the governments that funded them"; and
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that "the history of the benefit programs, specifically the federal
government's express relinquishment of its former obligation to
provide benefits for qualified aliens subject to the residency
requirement and the State's decision to assume that obligation only
underscores their autonomy." Id. at 272-73.
The appellants aver that "[t]he District Court erred as
a matter of fact and law when it concluded that there was no class
of citizens who were similarly situated to the Plaintiffs," because
(in their view) Maine operated a "unitary medical assistance
benefits program" for citizens and aliens alike. To evaluate this
contention, we begin where the district court did -- by examining
the legal contours through which such publicly-funded benefits have
been provided to Maine residents.
As we have explained above, PRWORA seismically shifted
the landscape of Medicaid funding in 1996. Despite the cooperative
federal-state nature of Medicaid benefits, PRWORA classifies
Medicaid as a "federal program" from which many subclasses of
aliens are excluded, including legal residents who have not yet
resided in this country for five years. Participating states are
statutorily obligated to alter Medicaid benefits available to their
residents in order to remain compliant with evolving federal law.
Nevertheless, in enacting PRWORA Congress authorized the states to
provide purely state-funded welfare benefits to legal aliens, and
in 1997, the state of Maine enacted legislation to ameliorate the
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effects of PRWORA for legal aliens who would have remained eligible
for Medicaid benefits but for PRWORA. Maine therefore dispensed
both the Medicaid medical assistance funds for eligible residents
and the state supplemental medical assistance funds for PRWORA-
ineligible alien residents under the auspices of MaineCare. In
2011, the state legislature repealed the 1997 State Legislation's
grant of state supplemental medical assistance benefits for PRWORA-
ineligible aliens. At present, publicly-funded medical assistance
remains available to eligible Maine residents through federal-state
Medicaid funding still known locally as MaineCare.
With this context established, we turn to the appellants'
first contention that the district court erred in construing the
1997 State Legislation as establishing a new state program distinct
from Medicaid. The 1997 State Legislation mandated that "funds
must be expended"
[t]o provide financial and medical assistance
to certain noncitizens legally admitted to the
United States. Recipients of assistance under
this subparagraph are limited to the
categories of noncitizens who would be
eligible for the TANF or Medicaid programs but
for their status as aliens under PRWORA.
Eligibility for the TANF and Medicaid programs
for these categories of noncitizens must be
determined using the criteria applicable to
other recipients of assistance from these
programs.
Me. Pub. L. 1997, ch. 530, § A-16 (codified at Me. Rev. Stat. tit.
22, § 3762(3)(B)(2), as amended). In the appellants'
interpretation, the last sentence bespeaks a single medical
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assistance program provided by the state of Maine for citizens and
aliens alike. Parsing its language closely, they suggest that had
the legislature intended to create a separate and distinct program
for ineligible aliens, "it would have referenced other recipients
of 'those programs,' rather than 'these programs.'"
The appellants, however, gloss over the immediately
preceding sentence, which expressly limits state assistance to "the
categories of noncitizens who would be eligible for the TANF or
Medicaid programs but for their status as aliens under PRWORA."
This sentence clearly evinces the legislature's awareness that this
subclass of aliens was ineligible for federally-sponsored Medicaid
due to "their status as aliens under PRWORA." We therefore agree
with the Commissioner's suggestion that "a sensible reading of the
final sentence" shows only that the legislature intended to utilize
"the same eligibility standards (save citizenship requirements)"
for PRWORA-ineligible aliens applying for state assistance as were
utilized for Medicaid applicants.
The appellants also allege that, in practice, Maine
operated a single state healthcare program, MaineCare, which did
not distinguish between eligible citizens and aliens on the one
hand and PRWORA-ineligible aliens on the other. The appellants
emphasize, inter alia, that the state referred to all public
medical assistance benefits as "MaineCare" and informed PRWORA-
ineligible aliens in 2011 that their "MaineCare" benefits were
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being changed; that the state applied the same eligibility criteria
and used the same application form for all MaineCare applicants;
that citizens and non-citizens received the same "full benefits";
and that the state occasionally submitted its expenditures on
PRWORA-ineligible aliens to the federal government, which later
sought reimbursement from the state. The Commissioner acknowledges
that the appellants' materials "collectively suggest that the Maine
Department of Health and Human Services did not distinguish, both
outwardly and in certain aspects of its internal administration,
between the Medicaid benefit provided to citizens and eligible
aliens and the state-created benefit that was provided to Medicaid-
ineligible aliens." Nevertheless, the Commissioner maintains that
public perception and common administration do not render the
federal-state Medicaid benefits and the state aliens-only benefits
legally indistinct for equal protection purposes.
We agree with the Commissioner. The veneer of a single
MaineCare program merely obscured the legal reality that, from 1997
to 2011, MaineCare recipients received benefits from two distinct
programs: one funded jointly by the federal and state governments,
with the federal government retaining ultimate authority over,
inter alia, eligibility criteria; and the other fully funded and
controlled by the state government. It was the federal government
that determined the appellants' ineligibility for Medicaid benefits
by enacting PRWORA, to which the state responded by extending
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equivalent state-funded medical assistance benefits to the
appellants for a time.
The Ninth Circuit's analysis in Pimentel v. Dreyfus, 670
F.3d 1096 (9th Cir. 2012), rejecting a comparable equal protection
challenge to the termination of a state food assistance program for
PRWORA-ineligible aliens only, is particularly instructive here.
Like MaineCare, Washington's "Basic Food Program" jointly provided
state-funded food assistance to PRWORA-ineligible aliens and
federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ("SNAP") benefits
to citizens and eligible aliens. The agency employed a single
application form and identical eligibility criteria for all aid
recipients, and the aid recipients themselves were not informed of
the source of their benefits. Id. at 1101-02. The state was also
authorized to issue federal SNAP benefits to ineligible aliens so
long as it then reimbursed the federal government for the value of
the benefit and associated administrative costs. Id. at 1100-01.
The Ninth Circuit nevertheless held that "[t]he appearance of a
single program does not overcome this fact: the two programs are,
in reality, two separately administered programs funded by two
distinct sovereigns," leaving the plaintiffs dissimilarly situated
to SNAP recipients. Id. at 1107. The court elaborated:
A careful consideration of the contours of the
SNAP program, including the statutory scheme,
source of funding, extent of state
involvement, and history, demonstrates that
SNAP is a federal program which the state
merely assists in administering, rather than a
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state program which receives federal
assistance, and that its beneficiaries are
differently situated from, and cannot be
compared to, [the named plaintiff].
Id. at 1108; see also Hong Pham v. Starkowski, 16 A.3d 635, 654-55
(Conn. 2011) (examining the contours of Medicaid and finding
plaintiffs, PRWORA-ineligible aliens formerly receiving
supplemental state medical assistance benefits, dissimilarly
situated to Medicaid recipients "[i]n light of the scope of federal
control over the federal Medicaid program and the extent to which
the federal government funds that program").
Contrary to the appellants' suggestion that Maine
operated a single state medical assistance program for all state
residents, we therefore agree with the district court's conclusion
that MaineCare comprised two separate medical assistance programs:
federal-state cooperative Medicaid and a state supplemental program
for PRWORA-ineligible aliens only. When it repealed the
supplemental aliens-only program, the state of Maine did not
deprive the appellants of a benefit that it continued to provide to
citizens -- or to anyone else, for that matter. Consequently, the
appellants cannot point to any similarly situated individuals who
remain "engaged in the same activity vis-à-vis the government
entity." Cordi-Allen, 494 F.3d at 251 (emphasis added); see also
Hong Pham, 16 A.3d at 650 ("[T]he equal protection clause does not
require the state to treat individuals in a manner similar to how
others are treated in a different program governed by a different
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government."); Pimentel, 670 F.3d at 1107; Soskin v. Reinertson,
353 F.3d 1242, 1255-56 (10th Cir. 2004); Khrapunskiy v. Doar, 909
N.E.2d 70, 76-77 (N.Y. 2009).2
The fact that Maine voluntarily participated in Medicaid
does not alter our analysis. By the appellants' logic, Maine's
continued voluntary participation in Medicaid and compliance with
PRWORA violated the Equal Protection Clause, requiring the state to
either withdraw from Medicaid altogether or to create an equivalent
state-funded medical assistance benefit for PRWORA-ineligible
aliens. Of course, Maine did the latter for a time; according to
the appellants, the state's termination of those equivalent state-
funded benefits placed it in violation of the Equal Protection
2
In light of this distinction between federal and state
action, we find the appellants' cases unpersuasive. Aliessa ex
rel. Fayad v. Novello, 754 N.E.2d 1085 (N.Y. 2001), addressed a
state's discretionary imposition of alienage-based criteria for
purely state-funded benefits, rendering the plaintiff aliens
similarly situated to citizens still receiving these benefits.
(The New York Court of Appeals itself later underscored this
distinction in Khrapunskiy, 909 N.E.2d at 76-77.) Although Ehrlich
v. Perez, 908 A.2d 1220 (Md. 2006), invalidated the termination of
a state-funded benefits program for PRWORA-ineligible aliens only,
the Maryland court relied heavily on Aliessa without addressing
this distinction. As for Unthaksinkun v. Porter, No. 11-588, 2011
WL 4502050 (W.D. Wash. Sept. 28, 2011), Finch v. Commonwealth
Health Insurance Connector Authority (Finch II), 959 N.E.2d 970(Mass. 2012), and Finch v. Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector
Authority (Finch I), 946 N.E.2d 1262 (Mass. 2011), these cases
involved Medicaid "demonstration programs" rather than federal-
state cooperative Medicaid programs per se. See Finch II, 959
N.E.2d at 974, 981 (explaining that Massachusetts' Commonwealth
Care program, although federally-subsidized, was "State-initiated,"
"entirely State-run," "entirely under State control, and not bound
by uniform Federal rules").
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Clause, just as it would have been had it never extended those
benefits in the first place.
The Equal Protection Clause does not place the state in
such a Procrustean bed. The fact that Congress discriminated on
the basis of alienage in enacting PRWORA does not also establish
alienage-based discrimination by Maine merely because of its
continued Medicaid participation and required compliance with
PRWORA. While the federal government determines certain baseline
eligibility requirements and selects particular classes of
categorically needy persons who are eligible to receive Medicaid
benefits, a state, by choosing to participate in Medicaid,
generally adopts the grouping of federal eligibility requirements
as a whole. Like the Hong Pham court, we therefore conclude that
if Maine can be said to have "discriminated" at all, it only did so
on the basis of federal Medicaid eligibility, a benign
classification subject to mere rational basis review. See id. at
659; cf. Soskin, 353 F.3d at 1255-56.
Like other courts facing similar post-PRWORA equal
protection claims, we therefore conclude that the state was under
no constitutional obligation to "fill the gap" created by PRWORA by
extending equivalent state-funded benefits to federally-ineligible
aliens. See Korab v. Fink, No. 11-15132, 2014 WL 1302614, at *2,
*9 (9th Cir. Apr. 1, 2014); Pimentel, 670 F.3d at 1109; Hong Pham,
16 A.3d at 661; Khrapunskiy, 909 N.E.2d at 77; cf. Sudomir v.
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McMahon, 767 F.2d 1456, 1465-66 (9th Cir. 1985). Because Maine was
not obligated to extend equivalent state-funded benefits to the
appellants in the first place, it follows that the termination of
those benefits does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. See
Pimentel, 670 F.3d at 1109-10; Hong Pham, 16 A.3d at 661.
As a last stand, the appellants rely on Graham's
proclamation that Congress "does not have the power to authorize
the individual States to violate the Equal Protection Clause." 403
U.S. at 382. More specifically, they contend that "[t]he
Commissioner cannot seek shelter for her equal protection violation
in Congress's enactment of PRWORA" because PRWORA did not "create
a national uniform immigration policy with respect to access to
medical care," and instead left "the decision of whether to provide
medical assistance for medically indigent non-citizens who have
been in the country less than five years to the individual states."
However, as we have explained above, the appellants' argument rests
on the assumption that a state's mere participation in Medicaid,
subject to PRWORA's mandatory eligibility restrictions, represents
alienage-based discrimination. Because we conclude that the
state drew no distinctions on the basis of alienage, Graham's
proscription does not apply here, and we therefore need not reach
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the question of whether Maine acted in accordance with uniform
federal policy.3
In short, the disparate treatment challenged by the
appellants is not attributable to legislation enacted by the state
of Maine. Instead, the appellants are experiencing the impact of
a congressional decision -- PRWORA's mandatory five-year residency
requirement -- restricting their eligibility for public welfare
benefits, including federal-state cooperative programs such as
Medicaid. As a result, there is no class of similarly situated
citizens with whom the appellants can be compared vis-à-vis the
state of Maine. We therefore conclude that the appellants' equal
protection claim fails on the merits and that the district court
properly denied the appellants' request for a preliminary
injunction.
C. Dismissal
One final task remains. The Commissioner requests that
we remand and order the district court to dismiss this case
outright. The request is a sound one. We may remand a case for
dismissal after reviewing a district court's preliminary injunction
3
Even assuming arguendo that Maine discriminated on the basis
of alienage in declining to extend state-funded benefits to PRWORA-
ineligible aliens, we question whether the state's action would in
fact run afoul of Graham. We need not decide the question today,
but we note that both the Ninth and Tenth Circuits have held that
PRWORA represents a uniform federal policy such that a state's
exercise of its discretion under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1612(b) and 1622(a)
garners only rational basis review under Plyler. See Korab, 2014
WL 1302614, at *8; Soskin, 353 F.3d at 1255.
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order, see First Med. Health Plan, Inc. v. Vega-Ramos, 479 F.3d 46,
50-51 (1st Cir. 2007), and we do so here.
In order to survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint
"must provide fair notice to the defendants and state a facially
plausible legal claim." Ocasio-Hernández v. Fortuño-Burset, 640
F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir. 2011). "Non-conclusory factual allegations in
the complaint must [] be treated as true, even if seemingly
incredible," id., but a court is "'not bound to accept as true a
legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation,'" Bell Atl. Corp.
v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Papasan v. Allain,
478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986)).
In its order denying without prejudice the Commissioner's
motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the district court
was decidedly skeptical as to the merits of the appellants' equal
protection claim, and allowed the case to go forward "despite some
misgivings." Bruns v. Mayhew, No. 12-131, 2012 WL 5874812, at *13
(D. Me. Nov. 20, 2012). Nevertheless, the district court felt
constrained by the deferential pleading standard and found "the
line between factual allegation and legal conclusion [] too murky
for a clean and decisive resolution," because in its opinion the
question of whether Maine operated separate medical benefits
programs appeared to be "a factual issue." Id. at *9, *13.
In opposing dismissal, the appellants agree with the
district court's reasoning and also point to the Ninth Circuit's
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analysis in Pimentel, which looked to the "the statutory scheme,
source of funding, extent of state involvement, and history" to
determine whether recipients of state-funded food assistance were
similarly situated to federal SNAP recipients. 670 F.3d at 1108.
The appellants err, however, in framing Pimentel's analysis as a
"factual inquiry." The Pimentel court focused almost exclusively
on the legal contours of the federal and state food assistance
programs, and not at all on the plaintiffs' factual allegations
regarding the administration and appearance of the programs.
Indeed, the court explicitly stated, "The statutory scheme
establishes that the SNAP program is federal." Id. (emphasis
added).
Likewise, both the appellants' underlying complaint and
our own analysis in this case are grounded in law rather than fact.
The appellants set forth Maine's purportedly unconstitutional
legislative actions in a section of their complaint titled
"Statutory Framework," separate from the "Factual Allegations"
section describing the individual appellants' medical conditions
and denial of benefits. That section is rife with legal
conclusions, stating inter alia that "PRWORA did not prescribe a
uniform rule for the treatment of aliens"; that "[a]lthough
MaineCare benefits for [PRWORA-ineligible] non-citizens were
exclusively state-funded while United States citizen benefits were
jointly funded by the federal and state governments, this did not
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create an independent state Medicaid program for lawful permanent
residents in Maine"; and that the 2011 Legislation "den[ied] non-
citizens lawfully residing in Maine full MaineCare coverage while
allowing similarly situated United States citizens to retain those
same MaineCare benefits."
In finding no equal protection violation in this case, we
have taken as true the appellants' allegations that Maine's state-
funded supplemental medical assistance benefits for PRWORA-
ineligible aliens were jointly administered with, and outwardly
indistinguishable from, the Medicaid benefits enjoyed by citizens
and eligible aliens. We reject only their legal conclusions, which
we are under no obligation to accept. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at
555.
The appellants alternatively suggest that even if strict
scrutiny is unwarranted, dismissal is nevertheless inappropriate
because they are entitled to discovery on the question of whether
Maine's actions would violate the Equal Protection Clause under
more deferential review. More specifically, they suggest that
discovery may uncover evidence of a discriminatory animus against
aliens, invalidating the state's action even under rational basis
review. This argument is doubly flawed. First, as we have
explained above, as a matter of law, Maine did not discriminate on
the basis of alienage at all. Second, and more fundamentally, the
appellants' underlying complaint does not allege discriminatory
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animus on the part of the state, nor does it anywhere suggest that
Maine's actions violated the Equal Protection Clause even under
rational basis review. The appellants therefore cannot salvage
their complaint now by invoking such a claim for the first time.
See Alicea v. Machete Music, No. 12-1548, 2014 WL 888909, at *6
(1st Cir. Mar. 7, 2014) ("The plaintiffs' failure to adequately
raise this argument below dooms it on appeal."); Iverson v. City of
Boston, 452 F.3d 94, 102 (1st Cir. 2006) ("[T]heories not squarely
and timely raised in the trial court cannot be pursued for the
first time on appeal.").
III.
For the foregoing reasons, the appellants have failed to
state a claim under the Equal Protection Clause. We therefore
affirm the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction and
remand with instructions that the appellants' complaint be
dismissed.
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