The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has issued a new opinion telling states that agencies must report people known to be unlawfully present to federal immigration authorities or risk losing major welfare funding tied to two large federal programs, a move that reverses a 1998 interpretation and raises the stakes for state cooperation with immigration enforcement.
The opinion says states that participate in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income must require every state agency to inform the Department of Homeland Security when they know someone is unlawfully present. That flips a two-decade-old understanding that limited the duty to the specific agencies running those programs, and it broadens the reporting obligation to places like colleges and motor vehicle agencies. The change is being presented as a tool to enforce immigration laws more comprehensively across state systems.
This administration frames the opinion as part of a broader push to hold jurisdictions accountable for cooperating with federal immigration enforcement, and it squares with a pattern of tougher tactics since President Trump returned to the White House. That approach has included deploying federal teams to cities and increasing partnerships with state and local law enforcement and private contractors to locate people believed to be unlawfully present. For supporters, this is about using federal leverage to discourage sanctuary policies and improve border control outcomes.
The legal advice warns of steep financial consequences if states fail to comply. “Failure to comply may lead to serious consequences, including loss of program funding,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Joshua Craddock said in a statement. Those words are weighty given the sums tied to the two programs at issue and the administration’s willingness to press the point.
The dollar figures make the stakes clear: federal grants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families exceed $16.5 billion annually, and Supplemental Security Income federal benefits top $60 billion each year. Illegal migrants are not eligible for either program, which is central to the administration’s argument that preventing benefit access is a legitimate enforcement goal. Losing even a portion of that funding would be a major blow to state budgets and services.
Not every legal path is straightforward for the administration, since Democrat-led states have already filed suits aiming to block aspects of the plan. Some lawsuits focus on preventing DHS from collecting personal information from people who receive TANF benefits, while other challenges have targeted broader efforts to compel state cooperation. Courts have pushed back in some areas but also allowed federal authorities to obtain certain data in others, like some Medicaid records.
Practical implications go beyond welfare offices. Under the new opinion, any state agency that becomes aware of unlawful presence could be on the hook to report that information to DHS. That potentially brings colleges, motor vehicle departments, and similar state entities into immigration enforcement activities, raising administrative, legal, and political questions about how those agencies will handle sensitive personal data and whether they will cooperate. For states that resist, the choice will be between noncooperation and risking federal funding streams tied to these programs.
The opinion takes effect in a context where every state and the District of Columbia already participate in the reporting requirements connected to the two programs named by the DOJ. But expanding the universe of reporting entities makes compliance a far larger exercise, and it invites new rounds of litigation and negotiation over what counts as “knowledge” and the procedures agencies must follow. Expect courts to sort some of those boundaries in the months ahead.
For Republican policymakers and officials who back stricter immigration enforcement, the move is a necessary corrective to years of fragmented cooperation that they say undermined federal law. For opponents, it looks like federal pressure that will force state agencies into roles they did not sign up for and could chill access to services for vulnerable populations. Either way, the opinion raises immediate choices for governors and state lawmakers about how far they will let federal leverage shape state administration of social programs.
