WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a legal opinion dated September 1 that interprets a 1996 federal welfare law to require every agency in a participating state — not just welfare offices — to report to the Department of Homeland Security any person the state “knows” is not lawfully present in the United States. States that accept Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) funds face possible loss of those grants if they do not comply, the opinion states.
The memo withdraws a narrower 1998 Clinton-era interpretation that limited the duty to the specific agencies administering TANF or SSI. Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser said Congress “wrote this requirement plainly” in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
“When a state chooses to participate in TANF, it accepts the obligation to report illegal aliens in the United States,” Gaiser said. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Joshua Craddock, who authored the opinion, said it “does not impose new obligations on states” but “restores the original meaning of the statute.” Failure to comply “may lead to serious consequences, including loss of program funding.”
All 50 states, the District of Columbia and several territories participate in TANF, which distributes more than $16.4 billion in federal block grants each year. The opinion applies only prospectively meaning that states will not be penalized for past reliance on the 1998 reading.
Impacts to Washington state
Washington state receives more than $300 million in federal TANF funding annually and served nearly 36,000 households in 2025, according to Attorney General Nick Brown’s office. The state also operates a State Supplemental Payment program that adds to federal SSI benefits. Under the new interpretation, agencies ranging from the Department of Social and Health Services to the Department of Licensing, public universities and local jails would be required to share names, addresses and other identifying information about people they know lack lawful status.
This requirement directly collides with Washington’s 2019 Keep Washington Working Act (KWWA). The law, enacted as Senate Bill 5497 and codified in part at RCW 10.93.160, generally prohibits state and local law-enforcement agencies from inquiring about immigration status except in connection with a state or local criminal investigation. It also bars agencies from providing non-public personal information to federal immigration authorities in civil matters, from honoring ICE detainers solely for immigration purposes, and from entering 287(g) agreements that deputize local officers for federal immigration enforcement. State agencies likewise may not use public resources to assist federal civil immigration enforcement that targets residents solely on the basis of immigration or citizenship status.
Since KWWA went into effect, the Department of Licensing has ended or suspended ICE and Customs and Border Protection access to certain driver and vehicle databases and reports blocking more than 100,000 federal queries since late 2025.
Although AG Brown has not filed a lawsuit specifically challenging the DOJ’s September 1st opinion, he did, however, join a 23-state-plus coalition on August 3 in State of New York et al. v. Administration for Children and Families. That suit contests a June 2026 ACF notice that would allow the federal government to share detailed TANF recipient records — including Social Security numbers, addresses and immigration-status data — with DHS.
“Families in Washington who turn to TANF for help with basic needs depend on our state to keep their data private and secure,” Brown wrote announcing the release of the suit. “We’ve stood firm against this administration’s illegal efforts to use personal data from our residents for unlawful purposes.”
The August case focuses on recipient-file sharing rather than the broader “any known undocumented person, any state agency” standard in the new DOJ memo. Washington state could treat the two issues as related and possibly amend the existing complaint or file a new one if the federal government now attempts to enforce the opinion through grant conditions.
Brown’s office has so far brought dozens of other suits against the Trump administration over immigration-related funding conditions, data-sharing demands and restrictions on state benefits—yielding several victories with over $1 billion from being stripped from the state. These include challenges to SNAP data requests, Medicaid work rules, and federal attempts to place ICE cooperation conditions on transportation or public-safety grants. The DOJ, in turn, sued Washington state in early September over the state’s policy of granting in-state tuition and financial aid to undocumented students.
Author: Mario Lotmore
