“Congress wrote this requirement plainly. When a state chooses to participate in TANF, it accepts the obligation to report illegal aliens in the United States.
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The Justice Department Withdraws a Clinton-Era Opinion and Tells Every Agency of Every State — DMVs and Public Universities Included — to Report Undocumented Immigrants to DHS or Put $76 Billion in Welfare Money at Risk
September 2, 2026
On Wednesday, September 2, 2026, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion withdrawing a 1998 Clinton-administration opinion and sharply expanding which parts of state government must report people they know to be unlawfully present in the United States to the Department of Homeland Security. The 1996 welfare-reform law conditions participation in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income on reporting known undocumented immigrants to federal immigration authorities. The 1998 opinion read that duty narrowly, as binding only the state agencies that actually administer TANF and SSI benefits. The new opinion reads it to reach every agency of any state that takes the money — motor vehicle departments, public universities, and state and local bodies that never touch a welfare file. The stakes are large: federal TANF block grants run past $16.4 billion a year and federal SSI benefits exceed $60 billion. The Office of Legal Counsel said states that do not want the obligation are free to stop taking the funds. The opinion arrived days after a coalition of Democratic attorneys general sued to stop DHS from getting TANF data at all, and it is expected to draw its own legal challenge from Democratic-led states.
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“The Trump Administration is continuing to try to coerce states into its hateful agenda, this time by attempting to rewrite decades-old law.
“Our clarification does not impose new obligations on states. It simply restores the original meaning of the statute Congress enacted and ensures that DHS receives the information it is legally entitled to.
“The mandatory reporting obligations … thus apply to all agencies within a state that participates in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income programs subject to those requirements. States remain free to reevaluate their participation in TANF or SSI going forward in view of today’s opinion.
“Sanctuary cities just lost one of their favorite loopholes.