The Department of Justice’s 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 TANF or SSI benefits — must report individuals known to be not lawfully present in the United States to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“Congress wrote this requirement plainly,” said Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. “When a state chooses to participate in TANF, it accepts the obligation to report illegal aliens in the United States.
The Office withdrew a Clinton-era opinion from 1998 that construed the reporting requirement much more narrowly. Under that prior interpretation, only the specific state agencies administering TANF or SSI were required to provide information to federal immigration authorities. All fifty states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories currently participate in TANF and SSI, and federal TANF funding grants exceed $16.4 billion annually.
The opinion applies prospectively. States will not face retroactive penalties for past reliance on the 1998 interpretation.