Twenty states and the District of Columbia sued the Justice Department on Monday for adding a new immigration enforcement rule to federal grants that assist victims of crime — arguing it's part of the Trump administration's crackdown against "sanctuary states."
The lawsuit focuses on the Office for Victims of Crime, a 42-year-old division of the Justice Department that hands out more than $1 billion per year to all 50 states to compensate crime victims and fund programs like local crisis counseling centers, emergency shelters, domestic abuse hotlines and victim advocacy services.
The Trump-era Justice Department added a new condition to those grants that denies funding to any program that "violates (or promotes or facilitates the violation of) federal immigration law." That includes fa