The Justice Department issued a new legal interpretation Wednesday in an attempt to push every state in the country to report undocumented immigrants living in their communities and advance President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.The department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the attorney general, said that when states accept federal funds to assist low-income families — through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Security Income programs — they’re obligated to report anyone who’s not lawfully present in the U.S. to the Department of Homeland Security, according to its new legal opinion.The reporting requirement would extend to the entire state government, not just the agencies administering TANF and SSI benefits, according to the opinion.Every state receives federal funding to provide financial assistance through both programs — which are among the country’s largest safety-net programs for low-income families, elderly residents and people with disabilities.The Office of Legal Counsel said it reinterpreted a Clinton-era opinion from 1998 that required only the specific state agencies tasked with overseeing TANF or SSI programs to share information with federal immigration authorities.“States will not face retroactive penalties for past reliance on the 1998 interpretation,” the Justice Department said in a news release Wednesday, but it expects states to abide by the new opinion in the future.It’s likely that certain states, especially those that are led by Democrats, will challenge the new legal interpretation in court. Attorneys general in several states have already pushed back against previous attempts from the Trump administration to force local agencies to share information about immigration status with the federal government alongside other immigration enforcement efforts.
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