It can be the strangest thing when new eyes go over old material.
You catch things that the folks who went before you missed or might have outright misinterpreted. Now, were they doing things wrong from then on out the entire time, or was it a conscious choice based on the prevailing culture?
There could be a million explanations.
Whatever the circumstances surrounding how regulations and their subsequent application are handled, it goes without saying that nothing is written in stone.
This is what appears to be the case regarding what responsibility the individual states have as far as answering to the federal government goes when it comes to the question of funding for some well-known low-income programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Security Income.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has had a heckuva time getting documentation out of states about nearly anything that might expose someone as an ‘illegal alien,’ and much of the angst has to do with taxpayer dollars funding illegal aliens living off of the various welfare-related benefits the U.S. offers, after being filtered through the states’ different agencies that administer them.
The states themselves are refusing to turn over the documentation, be it for voter security or for bouncing commercial driver’s license (CDL) eligibility; many of them (especially blue states) have been intractable as far as non-compliance.
They’re not giving up jack.
Or José.
The federal government, on the other hand, had limited screws to turn and, when they did have run into an ongoing juggernaut of opposition in the guise of lawsuits, obfuscation, and temporization.
But I’ll give this Department of Justice one thing – they never quit. And apparently they went digging through old files to see exactly who gets what money and came across something they took issue with that was an easy fix.
They found what they determined to be an erroneous Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion from over twenty years ago that reportedly did not reflect the Congressional intent of the law it was addressing.
DOJ has revised and corrected that problem.
All states going forward must report undocumented immigrants known to be in a state to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or risk losing federal funding for programs meant to aid low-income individuals, the Department of Justice said in a new legal opinion.
The DOJ, in issuing the opinion, revised the Office of Legal Counsel’s prior opinion from 1998, which found that only specific state agencies that administered the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Security Income programs needed to provide information to federal immigration authorities.
“Congress wrote this requirement plainly,” Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, said in a statement.
“When a state chooses to participate in TANF, it accepts the obligation to report illegal aliens in the United States,” Gaiser said. “Tax dollars intended to help vulnerable Americans should not perversely encourage illegal entry into the United States, but rather should reinforce our laws and our borders.”
The entire state is now answerable for the monies.
…The DOJ in a statement Wednesday said the Office of Legal Counsel’s Sept. 1 opinion “explains that Congress defined ‘State’ broadly in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.”
“As a result, when a state accepts federal TANF or SSI funds, the entire state government — including all component agencies — is bound by federal law to share information with DHS about individuals the state knows to be not lawfully present,” the DOJ said.
And ergo, if the federal government requests certain information in relation to those programs, the state had best provide it, or the monies can be cut off.
…“States that accept TANF funding must abide by federal law, and failure to comply may lead to serious consequences, including loss of program funding.”
It’s long overdue. The Clinton OLC had no idea that then Senator Autopen would flood the country with 10s of millions of illegal aliens.
— Big Screen D (@NoOne23131214) September 2, 2026
The DOJ is calling it ‘the duty of the states to report.’ All 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the territories that utilize these programs are affected.
All of them.
Oh, they’re going to be so pissed.
The Office of Legal Counsel has issued a legal opinion clarifying that when a state chooses to participate in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, all agencies within that state — not only those that administer… pic.twitter.com/RBGFiNSrxh
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) September 2, 2026
…not only those that administer TANF or SSI benefits — must report individuals known to be not lawfully present in the United States to @DHSgov.
“When a state chooses to participate in TANF, it accepts the obligation to report illegal aliens in the United States.” -Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel
As Missouri Senator Schmitt noted, this was a favorite blue-state loophole, and now it’s gone, or so is the cash.
Sanctuary cities just lost one of their favorite loopholes.
States taking federal welfare money cannot order their police, DMVs, or others to hide known illegal aliens from DHS.
Sanctuary jurisdictions must obey federal law or lose federal funding
It’s three decades of exponentially growing handouts with no accounting for the number of hands.
Between this and the deportation numbers ramping up like crazy…
It would be selective enforcement to pick and choose on a case-by-case basis while out in the community which illegal aliens to remove and which illegal aliens to leave behind.
So you take them all when you encounter them.
That is even-handed enforcement. https://t.co/oj4QixlUPr
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) August 31, 2026
…we might actually start really saving some real money.
It’s about time.
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
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