SPRINGFIELD – Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Monday that he has joined a multistate lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from withholding federal funding to support crime victims in Illinois due to the state’s policy on immigration.
The lawsuit is one of 35 such suits challenging Trump administration policies that Raoul has joined as part of a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general. That’s an average of more than one suit per week since Trump resumed office on Jan. 20.
The latest suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, argues that the U.S. Department of Justice has imposed unlawful conditions on the distribution of funds under the federal Victims of Crime Act, a 1984 law that provides funding to help crime victims deal with costs resulting from crimes, including medical bills, counseling services and lost wages.
The money is distributed to states through a series of grant programs. States then distribute their share of the money to programs and agencies that provide services or aid to crime victims. For the current federal fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30, more than $1.3 billion is supposed to be available nationwide, including about $54 million for Illinois.
Raoul’s office said the funding supports such programs as victim and witness advocacy services, emergency shelters, medical, funeral and burial expenses, crime scene cleanup, and sexual assault forensic exams.
Trump administration conditions
According to the lawsuit, however, the Trump administration has attached new and unlawful conditions to the distribution of those funds.
Those conditions were spelled out in a July 21 Notice of Funding Opportunity, which provides that funding may not be used for any “program or activity that, directly or indirectly, violates (or promotes or facilitates the violation of) federal immigration law … or impedes or hinders the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
According to the notice, that includes complying with a federal statute that prohibits state and local governments from restricting communication with immigration officials.
The lawsuit alleges that the requirement is more than a limit on the allowable use of funds but actually serves as an eligibility requirement, meaning any state or local jurisdiction with laws or policies in place that limit their law enforcement agencies from fully cooperating with federal immigration authorities will be deemed ineligible.
At issue in Illinois, according to the lawsuit, is the state’s 2017 TRUST Act, which, among other things, prohibits state and local law enforcement officials from assisting federal immigration agents in enforcement operations, giving immigration agents access to detained individuals or giving agents nonpublic information about the release dates of detained individuals.
“Conditioning that vital funding on cooperation with immigration enforcement is not just unlawful, it is immoral,” Raoul said during a news conference Monday. “VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) funds have no relationship to civil immigration policy. In fact, grants are distributed based on a statutory formula that has nothing to do with immigration.”
The lawsuit argues those conditions violate the federal Administrative Procedures Act, that they exceed the Justice Department’s legal authority and that they violate U.S. Constitution’s spending clause and separation of powers doctrine. It also asks the court to permanently enjoin enforcement of the conditions.
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