Twenty states and the District of Columbia sued the Justice Department on Monday for adding a new immigration enforcement rule to federal grants that assist victims of crime — arguing it’s part of the Trump administration’s crackdown against “sanctuary states.”
The lawsuit focuses on the Office for Victims of Crime, a 42-year-old division of the Justice Department that hands out more than $1 billion per year to all 50 states to compensate crime victims and fund programs like local crisis counseling centers, emergency shelters, domestic abuse hotlines and victim advocacy services.
The Trump-era Justice Department added a new condition to those grants that denies funding to any program that “violates (or promotes or facilitates the violation of) federal immigration law.” That includes failing to “give access to [Department of Homeland Security] agents, or honor DHS requests.”
But the states that joined Monday’s lawsuit argue that the rule is illegal, since the Reagan-era law that set up the federal government’s crime victim grant programs doesn’t say anything about immigration enforcement.
“The challenged conditions would force these States into an untenable position: either forfeit access to critical resources for vulnerable crime victims and their families, or accept unlawful conditions, allowing the federal government to conscript state and local officials to enforce federal immigration law,” the states and D.C. argue in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Rhode Island.
Mostly Democratic states joined the suit, including California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and Colorado. Collectively, they’ve received more than $500 million a year in crime victim grants since 2021, according to the lawsuit.
The states asked a federal judge to block the new rules and declare them illegal. They said they need “urgent relief” since applications for most of the grants are due Wednesday.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit.
As President Trump seeks to dramatically ramp up arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants, his administration has taken aim at so-called sanctuary cities and states, which generally limit local police from cooperating with federal immigration agents.
Within hours of his swearing-in on Jan. 20, the president signed an executive order directing officials to ensure that sanctuary jurisdictions “do not receive access to Federal funds.” Weeks later, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the Justice Department to identify and pause grants to groups that “support or provide services to removable or illegal aliens.”
The administration argues that sanctuary cities and states make it harder to enforce immigration laws, especially against criminals who end up in state or local custody.
Supporters of sanctuary laws, however, argue that forcing local law enforcement officers to work with immigration agents makes migrants less likely to cooperate with the police. Monday’s lawsuit said the conditions on crime victim grants risk “destroying trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities that is critical to preventing and responding to crime.”
“The federal government is attempting to use crime victim funds as a bargaining chip to force states into doing its bidding on immigration enforcement,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department cut off hundreds of federal grant programs, including money for nonprofits that help victims of hate crimes, sex trafficking and violence against children, according to a list obtained by CBS News. The heads of some nonprofits warned they would need to lay off staff or shutter crime victim hotlines.
At the time, a Justice Department spokesperson told CBS News: “We are confident that these cuts are consistent with the administration’s priorities while at the same time protecting services that tangibly impact victims.”
A group of anti-domestic-violence nonprofits also sued the Justice Department earlier this year for banning grant funding under the Violence Against Women Act to groups that promote “gender ideology” or diversity, equity and inclusion programs. A judge paused that rule.
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