By Nate Raymond

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Nov 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice has reversed course and will not seek to prevent a group of Democratic-led states from using federal grant funding to provide legal services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault who are immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia on Monday agreed to drop a lawsuit they filed last month over the new grant conditions after the Justice Department agreed not to apply them to their existing grant awards.

“Attacking survivors is despicable, and I am relieved that the federal government has backed down from this dangerous policy,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The states had sued in Rhode Island federal court after the Justice Department informed them in August that they could no longer use funds from three grant programs to cover legal services for immigrants “unlawfully present in the United States.”

The grants in question include those under the Violence Against Women Act and Victims of Crime Act, which help states support victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and other violent crimes.

The states said they rely on grants from those programs to provide victim services, including representation in family court for protective orders; relocation and housing assistance; and compensation for medical bills and funeral costs.

The states argued the policy was unlawful and conflicted with regulations that they said made clear eligibility for victim services could not be based on immigration status.

The Justice Department defended its ability to impose such conditions on grants generally, saying in an October 22 court filing that the states were seeking to “force the government to continue to fund legal services for illegal aliens with federal taxpayer dollars.”

Yet while the department defended the immigration-related policy broadly, it shifted on the VOCA and VAWA grants specifically in that filing and said the immigration-related conditions would not apply to them based on existing regulations.

In a filing on Monday, the Justice Department locked into that position, agreeing the conditions will not apply to the states’ current open grant awards under the two programs.

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Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at [email protected].

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