States must provide info on undocumented immigrants or lose federal safety-net funds, Trump admin says
(CNN) — The Justice Department moved Wednesday to require states to provide information on undocumented immigrants or lose federal funding for two key public assistance programs, issuing a sweeping revision of a long-standing legal opinion.
It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to force states to cooperate in the president’s aggressive immigration crackdown — this time, threatening to pull federal funding if they don’t turn over information on undocumented immigrants who they believe are residing in the country.
It stems from a new legal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel stating that when a state chooses to participate in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs — as all states do — they are required to report individuals who are illegally present in the United States to the Department of Homeland Security.
TANF provides cash assistance and other support to low-income households. SSI provides monthly payments to low-income senior citizens or people with disabilities.
The opinion, which the DOJ cast as a clarification of a previous opinion, applies to all agencies within a state, not just those that administer the programs. Previously, under a Clinton-era opinion from 1998, the reporting requirement was specific to state agencies administering TANF or SSI.
“Congress wrote this requirement plainly,” Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser of the OLC said in a statement.
“When a state chooses to participate in TANF, it accepts the obligation to report illegal aliens in the United States. Tax dollars intended to help vulnerable Americans should not perversely encourage illegal entry into the United States, but rather should reinforce our laws and our borders,” he said.
There are also some federal housing programs that are subject to the same reporting requirements, the opinion states.
The opinion, dated Tuesday, only applies to future funding.
It’s unclear how the new opinion will be put into action, and it is likely to face swift legal challenges from critics who argue the federal government is improperly attempting to leverage welfare benefits for access to state data.
The US Department of Agriculture has also tried to gain more information from states about undocumented immigrants possibly receiving food stamps — a key safety net program that is funded by the federal government but administered by states.
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for food stamps — formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — and other federal benefits.
Last year, USDA requested for the first time that states provide it with their food stamp enrollee records, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins threatened to withhold funding from blue states that didn’t comply. But a coalition of Democratic states sued and won a preliminary injunction.
Earlier this year, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the department from imposing new conditions on USDA funding for food stamps and other nutrition programs. The conditions included barring states from using funding for programs that allow undocumented immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits.
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