States risk welfare funding if they don't report undocumented immigrants to DHS, DOJ says

States that receive federal welfare funding must now share information about undocumented immigrants with immigration authorities or risk losing that money. Welfare funding, here, means dollars from two specific programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which helps states provide cash assistance to low-income families, and Supplemental Security Income, which pays monthly benefits to elderly, blind, and disabled people with limited income and resources. The Department of Justice issued an opinion setting out that position.

The two programs the opinion targets

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, called TANF, is a federal block grant. A block grant is money the federal government sends to states in a fixed pool; states then decide how to use it within the program's rules.

Supplemental Security Income, called SSI, works differently. Monthly payments go directly to qualifying individuals rather than through state budgets. Recipients must be elderly, blind, or disabled and have limited income and resources. States can add supplemental payments of their own, but the federal SSI dollars are what the DOJ opinion addresses.

The agency states must report to is the Department of Homeland Security, which handles immigration enforcement. The opinion says that accepting TANF or SSI money now carries an obligation to share information about undocumented immigrants with DHS.

What a DOJ opinion does

A Justice Department opinion is a formal legal interpretation. Department lawyers write them to tell federal agencies how to read existing law. Congress passes statutes; the DOJ reads them. Agencies then use those readings to decide when they can enforce rules and when they can condition or withhold funding.

The short version of this opinion: the federal government's legal position now holds that states cannot accept TANF or SSI money and refuse to report undocumented immigrants to DHS. That is what was issued. Whether states comply or contest it, and whether the federal government moves to enforce the funding condition, are the open questions that follow.