AI Generated Image (not the actual grant documents in this case)
A Rhode Island federal judge permanently barred the Justice Department from tying police and youth grants to immigration cooperation in 22 states and D.C., reviving a fight the courts never fully settled.
A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled Wednesday that the Justice Department cannot enforce Byrne JAG immigration conditions against 22 states and the District of Columbia, permanently blocking requirements that would have made state police and youth grants depend on helping federal immigration officers. Chief U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. sided with a coalition that New Jersey helped lead, striking conditions that required grant recipients to give immigration officers access to people in state custody, notify federal officials before releasing them, and comply with rules on sharing immigration-related information, according to the New Jersey attorney general’s office as reported by The Jersey Vindicator. No Justice Department response had been reported as of Wednesday evening.
The money at stake is modest by federal standards but central to local policing. New Jersey was allocated about $4.2 million in Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant funds for fiscal 2025 and $2.7 million through a related crisis intervention program, The Jersey Vindicator reported, citing the state attorney general. Oregon said the ruling clears the way for $667,119 this year for Youth Development Oregon, a division of its education department.
What the Byrne JAG immigration conditions demanded
Byrne JAG is a formula grant: Congress sets eligibility and divides the money by population and crime data, which is why states argue the department has little room to add conditions. The three struck requirements track ICE’s core requests of local jails: interview access, advance notice of release so agents can arrest at the jail door, and no limits on sharing immigration-status information.
The states’ amended complaint, filed Aug. 21, argued the conditions exceeded the department’s statutory authority, strayed from the purposes Congress set and unconstitutionally coerced states. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said Congress set the funding aside “to help kids, not as leverage.” New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said the federal government “cannot unlawfully politicize law enforcement and public safety” by threatening grant access. Relief runs only to the states that sued, according to The Jersey Vindicator, so states outside the coalition still receive awards carrying the conditions.
A rerun of the 2017 sanctuary grant fight
The Justice Department first attached notice, access and information-sharing conditions to Byrne JAG awards in 2017. Cities and states sued, and the appeals courts split. The government’s strongest argument, which the Second Circuit accepted, is that the Byrne statute requires applicants to certify compliance with “all other applicable Federal laws,” a phrase that covers 8 U.S.C. 1373, the federal ban on restricting immigration-status communications. Other circuits read the statute more narrowly. The split was never resolved by the Supreme Court because the department stopped imposing the conditions in 2021.
| Appeals court | Case | Result on Byrne JAG immigration conditions |
|---|---|---|
| First Circuit (2020) | City of Providence v. Barr | Struck down as unauthorized |
| Second Circuit (2020) | New York v. U.S. Department of Justice | Upheld |
| Third Circuit (2019) | City of Philadelphia v. Attorney General | Struck down as unauthorized |
| Seventh Circuit (2020) | City of Chicago v. Barr | Struck down as unauthorized |
Rhode Island sits in the First Circuit, where City of Providence v. Barr already held that the department lacked authority to impose similar conditions. Unless the government can distinguish the 2026 conditions from the 2017 versions, an appeal to Boston is likely to meet binding precedent against it, and the practical route to a different answer would be the Supreme Court, where the circuit split gives the department a ready argument for review.
Why the ruling reaches beyond grant accounting
Grant conditions are one of the few levers Washington has over states that limit cooperation with ICE, since the Tenth Amendment bars it from ordering state officers to run federal programs. The administration has pulled the same lever before: it attached immigration conditions to more than $1.3 billion in Victims of Crime Act funding last year and dropped them after states pushed back, Oregon’s attorney general said. The fight over local cooperation is also playing out in state law, from California’s limits on honoring ICE detainers to Colorado’s rejected Amendment 81, and in the growth of 287(g) agreements in states that choose to cooperate.
For jail administrators in the coalition states, the immediate effect is that accepting this year’s Byrne money no longer commits them to granting ICE interview access or release notice. With Democrats set to control Congress after Tuesday’s midterm results, it is also unlikely that lawmakers will write the conditions into the grant statute itself.
What to watch
- Appeal: the federal government generally has 60 days after judgment is entered to appeal to the First Circuit.
- Other grants: whether the department adds similar conditions to programs the order does not cover.
- Non-plaintiff states: whether any state outside the coalition, including those in the Second Circuit, brings its own challenge.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice.
Sources
- Oregon Department of Justice, “AG Rayfield Wins Case Protecting Funding for Oregon Youth Programs” (Nov. 4, 2026)
- New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, multistate coalition announcement (Nov. 4, 2026)
- The Jersey Vindicator, “Federal judge blocks Trump administration from tying police grants to immigration enforcement” (Nov. 4, 2026)
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, City of Providence v. Barr, No. 19-1802 (2020)
About the Author
