The Donald Trump Administration has found a new way to pressure undocumented immigrants: using all state agencies as a tool for immigration control. A new ruling from the Department of Justice (DOJ) holds that the agencies of each State, not just those that provide financial aid to poor families, are required to report the immigration status of those participating in their programs to the federal Government. Entities that do not comply with this requirement, it warns, could lose federal funds intended for essential initiatives for their operations.
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The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel holds, in its legal interpretation, that when States accept federal funds to help low-income families through programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), they are required to inform the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about anyone who is not legally in the country. The agency now adds that this requirement also extends to other state agencies that administer programs funded with federal resources.
State coffers receive significant federal funds to support low-income families, people with disabilities, and the elderly. The financial pressure now exerted by the Trump Administration is considerable: the grants it distributes among the 50 States for the TANF program exceed 16.4 billion dollars annually.
Until now, state agencies interpreted a ruling issued in 1998, during President Bill Clinton’s era, which states that only the agencies overseeing TANF or SSI programs had to cooperate with immigration authorities. The DOJ notes that the new directive came into effect on September 1 and that sanctions resulting from its application will not have retroactive effects.
“The notification requirement (to DHS) facilitates the federal Government’s ability to identify individuals who may not be eligible for federally funded benefits and prevents improper expenditures,” reads a 19-page document from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. “Taxpayer funds intended to help vulnerable Americans should not perversely encourage illegal entry into the United States, but rather reinforce our laws and our borders,” it adds.
A known threat
The threats to use federal funds as a pressure mechanism against so-called sanctuary States are not new to the Trump Administration. So far, that strategy has not produced all the results the president seeks. The Republican particularly has California in his sights, one of the places with the largest undocumented population in the country and governed by Gavin Newsom, one of the Democratic figures who has emerged as a potential candidate for the Presidency in 2028 due to his open and constant confrontation with Trump and his policies.
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Among the battles undertaken in that State is an initiative that seeks to force federal immigration agents to remove their masks during raids. And in the state Legislature, a proposal is advancing that aims to prevent ICE agents from using stun devices to subdue people who resist during an arrest.
But California is not the only battleground. In recent months, various state governments and legislatures have sued the federal Administration and passed laws to try to stop several of its attacks. In January, the attorneys general of five Democrat-governed States — California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, and New York — filed a lawsuit after the announcement of the freezing of funds for several public assistance programs, arguing that there were concerns about possible fraud.
Another legal clash occurred in November 2025, when two federal judges separately blocked the federal Government’s attempts to impose new conditions on hundreds of millions of dollars in DHS funds intended for cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.
Judge William Orrick temporarily suspended the conditions imposed on more than 350 million dollars in grants for more than two dozen cities and counties in California, Washington, and Arizona, while Judge Manish Shah did the same with more than 100 million destined for New York, Boston, and other cities. Both determined that the Trump Government would have violated the law by trying to condition the funds on local governments eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and complying with other executive orders. Judge Orrick also blocked conditions that required local governments to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and to stop providing benefits to undocumented immigrants.
Under the DHS operates the feared Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency leading the campaign of mass arrests and deportations undertaken by Trump. In August alone, ICE detained around 50,000 people, maintaining the accelerated pace of arrests in recent months. Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, more than 500,000 migrants have been taken into ICE custody.
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