A coalition of Democratic-led states and advocacy groups filed separate but similar lawsuits on Monday against the Trump administration’s new policy allowing a federal low-income family program to share personal information, including immigration status, with other agencies.
The data-sharing rule, which was set to take effect on Aug. 11, would allow the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to share records on millions of people who receive money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It’s the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts hit with lawsuits that would give immigration authorities access to data held by other government agencies.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, co-leading the lawsuit, criticized the new rule as cruel and unnecessary, as they seek to block its implementation.
“The Trump Administration is exploiting a program designed to ensure children do not go hungry and to help needy families get back on their feet in order to fuel its mass surveillance effort,” Bonta said in a statement. “The Trump Administration continues to break the law in order to amass an ever-greater trove of people’s personal information.”
Neither the White House nor HHS responded to a request for comment before publication.
State attorneys general have indicated they believe this new data-sharing policy is more of the same. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown alleged that other federal agencies would unlawfully use the program’s data to conduct immigration checks.
“Allowing [the program’s] recipients’ private data to be unlawfully shared across the federal government would erode trust that states’ [low-income family] programs have built with immigrant communities and deter those lawfully qualified to receive benefits from seeking assistance,” Brown said in a statement.
The determination of which noncitizens are eligible to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds is “a matter of substantial State discretion,” the lawsuit reads. States are authorized to deem the eligibility of foreign nationals under the legislation that created the program.
“This [Trump] Administration has used every means at its disposal to erode federal confidentiality protections and deploy unsubstantiated allegations of ‘fraud’... particularly to target the benefits these programs provide by law to qualified immigrants and children in immigrant communities,” the lawsuit said.
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which is a subagency of the Health Department, oversees the low-income family program. It announced the rule change in June.
The new rule would allow HHS to disclose recipients’ data, including Social Security numbers, marital status, income, addresses, immigration status, and more, to federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security.
The program provides $16 billion to states each year.
In Bonta’s news release, he said 350,000 families in his state alone receive funds each month. Brown said that 38,000 recipients in Maryland receive funds each month.
Maryland receives $228 million annually through the program, according to Brown’s statement.
Congress created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in 1996 as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. States argue that the new data-sharing rule violates a slew of laws, including this legislation, which limited federal oversight of the low-income program and entrusted states with the task of verifying eligibility of recipients.
The lawsuit also claims the program’s new rule violates the Administrative Procedures Act, which dictates how federal agencies propose and adopt regulations, because ACF provided no explanation as to why it plans to depart from long-standing practices.
Furthermore, states argue that the policy violates the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act, dictating how federal agencies share data with one another.
The coalition of states filed its lawsuit in federal court in Washington. It involves Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, in addition to the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Advocacy groups, including Make the Road States, Common Cause, and Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed their lawsuit in a Brooklyn, New York, federal court, making similar arguments to the Democratic-led states.
