Trump DOJ Scraps Clinton-Era Limit on States Reporting Illegal Aliens

It stands to reason, at least, if you’re not a Democrat, that illegal aliens shouldn’t be receiving any government benefits. Oh, we won’t deny them emergency medical care; if an illegal alien enters any American emergency room with an immediately life-threatening injury or condition, they should and will be treated. For one thing, that’s a principle tenet of medical ethics; for another, we’re not savages.

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The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton — a Democrat — included provisions requiring states accepting federal welfare funds, which is all of them, to report any known illegal aliens to the Department of Homeland Security. In 1998, the Clinton administration tried to walk back that requirement, to soften it, by claiming that the reporting obligation only applied to the specific state agencies managing programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), SNAP, or EBT were required to carry out such reporting.

The Trump administration is now rolling that back. An opinion recently issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has made that official.

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In 1998, this Office narrowly construed the term “State” as used in section 404 to refer only to the “state agencies administering the particular federally funded program,” rather than all component agencies within the State. Construction of State Reporting Requirements in Section 404 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, 22 Op. O.L.C. 204, 205 (1998) (“1998 Opinion”) (emphasis omitted). We reached that view by disregarding PRWORA’s definition of “State” and giving that term inconsistent meanings within the same statutory provision.

The OLC is now redefining “State” to mean, well, the state.

Any participating state must report to DHS any person that the state knows to be not lawfully present. And “State,” as used in section 404, includes all component agencies, not only the state agency administering a covered federal benefits program. This reading follows from PRWORA’s express statutory definition of “State” and accords with well-established interpretive canons. It also finds ample support in statutory context and structure. We therefore determine that the mandatory reporting obligations in section 404(b) and (c) apply to all component agencies within a “State” and withdraw our contrary 1998 Opinion as inconsistent with PRWORA’s unambiguous commands.

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This isn’t an unusual tactic by the Left to selectively fiddle with definitions to try to soften a bipartisan law; the problem is the very nature of our Brobdingnagian federal government makes it difficult beyond measure to root out all the places this has been done, but rest assured the Democrat-governed states will be taking every advantage of those softened requirements. Furthermore, it’s a safe bet that at least some Democrat-dominated states will defy this new ruling and continue to protect people who are in the country illegally. We’ve seen this time and again; no matter how odious the illegal alien in question is, there is some Democrat politician or functionary who will go to the wall for them.

Now, at least, another leak has been plugged. There are, doubtless, thousands more.

(*) Full article: https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/09/02/olc-now-withdrawing-clinton-era-limit-on-illegal-immigrant-reporting-n2206407