Attorney General Tong Joins Multistate Lawsuit Challenging Trump Administration’s Immigration Conditions on Victims’ Aid Grants
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has joined a broad coalition of states in suing the U.S. Department of Justice over new immigration-related conditions placed on federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants. The case raises fundamental questions about separation of powers, federalism, and the rights of crime victims who depend on VOCA-funded services.
At issue is a July 2025 policy change by DOJ’s Office for Victims of Crime. In new Notices of Funding Opportunity, OVC declared that any program or activity that “violates or impedes” immigration enforcement would be ineligible for VOCA funding. This means state and local agencies, as well as nonprofit victim service providers, could lose funding unless they agreed to give federal immigration authorities “notice,” “access,” and cooperation in undefined ways. Programs that failed to comply would be cut off, regardless of their track record of supporting victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, or other crimes.
For Tong and his fellow attorneys general, this is not just misguided policy but unlawful overreach. They argue that Congress designed VOCA as a guaranteed formula grant system: each state “shall” receive a set amount of compensation and assistance funding, with formulas written into statute. DOJ’s sudden immigration conditions, they argue, are ultra vires—beyond the agency’s legal authority—and in direct conflict with 34 U.S.C. § 10228(a), which bars federal “direction, supervision, or control” over state police or criminal justice agencies. Forcing state and local entities to grant immigration officials access to victims or honor enforcement requests, the states say, is exactly the kind of federal control that statute prohibits.
The lawsuit also highlights the separation of powers. Under the Constitution, only Congress can set the conditions for federal spending. When an executive agency withholds congressionally guaranteed funds or bolts on unauthorized conditions, it usurps the legislature’s role. Tong and the coalition cast this as a textbook violation of the Spending Clause, citing Supreme Court precedents like South Dakota v. Dole and NFIB v. Sebelius. Even if Congress had authorized immigration-related conditions, they would still need to be unambiguous, related to the purpose of the funding, and non-coercive. Here, the states argue, the new conditions fail all three. They are vague, imposing undefined requirements such as “not impeding” immigration enforcement. They are unrelated, because VOCA’s purpose is to support crime victims, not to enlist states in federal immigration efforts. And they are coercive, because the funding at stake—hundreds of millions nationwide—is essential to sustaining victim services infrastructure.
On top of these constitutional claims, the complaint brings classic Administrative Procedure Act arguments. DOJ, the states contend, ignored key facts and reliance interests when it inserted immigration enforcement into a victims’ services program. For decades, states have built networks of VOCA subgrantees based on statutory formulas and assurances that victim services are provided regardless of immigration status. DOJ’s own regulations reinforce this. Abruptly changing course to require immigration cooperation undermines those expectations without a reasoned explanation, making the action arbitrary and capricious under the APA.
The complaint also spells out the harms. States and localities face an untenable choice: either divert resources into helping federal immigration enforcement, undermining their own community trust policies, or lose the VOCA funding that pays for counseling, shelters, hotlines, and compensation to victims. Either way, victims suffer. The costs of compliance and the damage to state programs cannot be recovered from the federal government, making the harm irreparable.
This lawsuit fits squarely into a line of cases where courts have reined in DOJ attempts to tie immigration conditions to unrelated funding streams. The First Circuit and several district courts have already struck down immigration-related conditions attached to Byrne JAG public-safety grants. Tong and the coalition are now asking courts to apply the same logic to VOCA: when Congress fixes funding formulas and purposes, the executive cannot unilaterally rewrite them.
The relief sought is straightforward. The states want declaratory and injunctive relief blocking DOJ from enforcing the immigration conditions. If granted, states could continue to receive VOCA funding as Congress intended, without having to turn their victim services providers into de facto arms of immigration enforcement.
The bottom line is simple: VOCA exists to serve victims of crime, not to conscript state and local agencies into federal immigration policy. By trying to condition these critical funds on cooperation with ICE, the Trump Administration is reaching beyond its statutory authority, undermining the constitutional separation of powers, and putting victims at risk. Attorney General Tong and his fellow attorneys general are asking the courts to stop it—and based on both precedent and the strength of their arguments, they have a solid case.
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