On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s effort to impose immigration enforcement requirements on over $1 billion dollars in grants that are meant to help victims of crime.
In July, the Office for Victims of Crime, the agency that administers the grants within U.S. Department of Justice, declared that states will be unable to access Victims of Crime Act funds unless they agree to help the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s federal immigration enforcement activities.
The fund, established by Congress in 1984, supports victim assistance efforts in 35 programs across the state, according to a statement issued by Bonta. They include the California Department of Justice’s Victim’s Services Unit, which provides trauma-informed responses to victims, survivors and families who have experienced crimes including sexual assault, robbery, hate crime and domestic violence.
Other threatened programs include Victim Witness Assistance Centers, which provides court escorts and other witness protections, and the Domestic Violence Assistance Program, which provides emergency shelter, food and other support to victims of domestic violence.
For fiscal year 2025, California is expected to receive over $165 million in grant funds to support these and other services, according to Bonta’s statement.
“Yet again, the Trump Administration is attempting to bully states into participating in their inhumane and frenzied immigration agenda,” Bonta said in a statement ahead of a joint news conference Monday with four other attorneys general that have joined the suit.
“This time, the President is holding hostage over a billion dollars in grants that states use to ensure victims and survivors of crime can access emergency shelter, sexual assault forensic exams, counseling, and other essential services to help reclaim their lives after tragedy,” Bonta said. “These actions are not only morally wrong, but they are also illegal. Only Congress has the power of the purse and the power to condition these funds.”
One lawsuit among many California has filed
The suit was filed in United States District Court in Rhode Island and asks for a declaratory judgment that the conditions placed on the grants are unlawful and should be removed. A declaratory judgment is binding and has the same effect as a final judgment. The deadline for many of the grants is Wednesday.
This suit is in addition to 37 lawsuits filed this year by California against the Trump Administration, according to an Aug. 4 statement by Gov. Gavin Newsom. In the 19 cases where California has sought and a district court has ruled on early relief, the state has succeeded in 17 of them, with 13 orders blocking Trump’s actions currently in effect.
“The Department of Justice does not have authority to impose immigration conditions on these funds,” said Illinois Attorney General Kwamie Raol. “We cannot become complacent to the cruelty that has been the hallmark of the Trump administration.”
“These actions are not only morally wrong, but they are also illegal. Only Congress has the power of the purse and the power to condition these funds.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta
Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said the funding cuts don’t align with Trump’s tough-on-crime rhetoric.
“These funding cuts or the red tape we would need to avoid them would empower actual criminals,” Jennings said. “They would overwhelm law enforcement, and they would make it even more frightening for victims of crime to come forward for fear that they would be rejected or were falsely identified, denied due process, and deported.”
“When a six or an eight-year-old child is being interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center as to whether or not she was sexually assaulted by an adult, one question that should not be asked is whether that child is in this country lawfully or unlawfully,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
“This is the president again, sidelining the Congress and taking authority to himself,” said Neronha. “In a way that is consistent with authoritarian government. It’s time for the Congress to stand up and react in the way the Democratic Attorneys General are responding. This is not an administration with which you can negotiate unless you’re Vladimir Putin, frankly, and so we have to stand up to him, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”