A federal judge in Rhode Island has permanently blocked the Justice Department from requiring 22 states and the District of Columbia to cooperate with civil immigration enforcement as a condition of receiving federal public safety and juvenile justice grants.
Chief U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee, declared the conditions unlawful on Wednesday, November 4, and barred the government from implementing or enforcing them, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, one of the plaintiffs.
The ruling covers some of the main federal grants that pay for state and local policing, including the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, known as Byrne JAG.
Which grants and immigration conditions were at issue
The states challenged conditions the Justice Department attached in 2026 to three programs:
- Byrne JAG formula grants, the main federal grant for state and local criminal justice.
- The Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program, which funds mental health services and violence prevention.
- Title II formula grants from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
To get the money, recipients would have had to give federal immigration authorities access to people in state custody suspected of immigration violations, notify federal officials before releasing them, and comply with rules on immigration-related information, the Jersey Vindicator reported.
The sums are significant for individual states. Wisconsin put its share at more than $6 million across the affected programs, including $3.2 million in Byrne JAG funds for the coming year. New Jersey received about $4.2 million in Byrne grants for fiscal 2025.
Why the judge ruled against the conditions
The states argued that Congress set the formulas and eligibility rules for these grants without authorizing immigration conditions, that the conditions coerced states in violation of the Constitution, and that they broke federal administrative law.
McConnell found the formula structure itself limits the department. Congress’s choice of a formula grant “constrains DOJ’s authority to add the immigration enforcement conditions at issue here,” he wrote, Court Cast reported.
How the case grew from victim aid funding
The lawsuit began in 2025 over Victims of Crime Act funding, which the administration had tied to immigration cooperation. The states say the government then removed those conditions from more than $1.3 billion in VOCA funds. When the department added similar terms to other grants in 2026, the coalition expanded its complaint in August.
The plaintiffs are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, plus the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania, which joined through its governor.
The order protects only the plaintiff states. The government can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Federal funding tied to immigration cooperation is one of the areas where control of Congress now matters, as covered in what split government means for immigration through 2028.