A federal judge from the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction against the Trump Administration on Wednesday, allowing states to continue to provide certain social services to illegal immigrants. This injunction will block the Trump Administration’s new interpretation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). 

For decades, states and nonprofits could offer services that were supported by federal taxpayer dollars to any “qualified” individual. Although a person needed to be a lawful resident to receive many benefits, many states were allowed to offer services without checking immigration status. That changed this summer when four federal agencies issued new directives requiring states to verify the immigration status of benefit recipients. States that did not implement these verification requirements faced losing access to funding for impacted programs. In response, a multi-state coalition of attorneys general, including Connecticut AG William Tong, sued the Administration.

“In a rush to punish immigrant children and families, the Trump Administration lawlessly imperiled access to healthcare, education and social service programs for thousands upon thousands of Connecticut families,” Tong said in a press release. “Their actions were cruel, unjustified and unlawful, we sued to stop them, and (this) injunction shows that the law is strongly on our side.”

In Connecticut, there were concerns that nine Community Action Agencies (CAA)—which received a total of $9 million a year through Community Service Block Grants—would close down, the press release states. These agencies include Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and other anti-poverty organizations.

There are 5,000 students across the state enrolled in Head Start programs and, collectively, the CAAs serve 100,000 families, according to the press release.

Despite funding concerns, all of these groups remained open and continue to operate.

It is unclear how many illegal immigrants benefit from CAA services and other state benefits.

“These services were provided regardless of immigration status so there was no need to impose a status verification process on these services,” Tong’s Director of Communications, Elizabeth Benton, told Inside Investigator in an email.

There are between 110,000 and 170,000 illegal immigrants in Connecticut. 

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that the state of Connecticut spent $950 million in taxpayer dollars on services for illegal immigrants in 2023. These services include Medicaid and other healthcare costs, education and incarceration expenses, in addition to other social services. Gov. Ned Lamont disagreed with this finding, but did not provide another estimate. 

Connecticut Voices for Children’s (CTVoices) Immigrant Research Initiative estimates that illegal immigrants paid $402 million in taxes in 2022. CTVoices spokespeople argue that illegal immigrants also keep many industries afloat, including the agricultural sector. Half of farmworkers in the state are immigrants, and the majority of them cannot legally work these jobs.

“We are talking about funding provided to community-based organizations that run preschool programs, domestic violence shelters, food pantries, and other services,” Benton said. “The Attorney General does not believe it would be helpful to deviate from three decades of past precedence to pull attention and funding away from those missions in order to establish new cumbersome status verification procedures. Especially because he believes that children in this country deserve access to education, safety and food regardless of their or their parents’ immigration status.”

The preliminary injunction was issued by Judge Mary S. McElroy, who was nominated by President Trump in 2019, and will remain in place while the lawsuit works its way through the court system.

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