A federal judge has rejected an effort by 22 states, two governors’ offices and the District of Columbia to temporarily block the federal government from sharing certain welfare-recipient information with the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the District Court for the District of Columbia denied the states’ request for a preliminary injunction on September 28, concluding that the plaintiffs had not sufficiently demonstrated either that they had standing to bring the challenge or that they would suffer irreparable harm without immediate court intervention.
The dispute centers on information collected through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a federally funded program administered by the states that provides assistance to low-income families with children.
Under a federal policy scheduled to take effect September 30, the government will have broader authority to share TANF information with other federal, state and private entities for purposes including verifying eligibility, citizenship and immigration status and ensuring compliance with program requirements.
The states argued that the expanded disclosure could undermine public confidence in TANF, particularly among immigrant and mixed-status families who might fear that information submitted for welfare benefits could reach immigration authorities.
Their argument was based on a potential chain of events: recipients could become less willing to apply for or continue receiving TANF, states could then face increased demand for other assistance programs, and those additional costs could create an injury sufficient to justify federal court intervention.
Boasberg acknowledged that the scenario was plausible. But plausibility alone was not enough.
“While such a consequence—and, indeed, Plaintiffs’ logical chain of events—seems plausible to the Court,” Boasberg wrote, the court could not rely on its own assumptions and instead had to examine the specific evidence presented by the plaintiffs.
The states submitted declarations from government officials predicting a chilling effect on TANF participation. Boasberg found that those assertions lacked supporting evidence demonstrating that recipients were actually likely to stop participating because of the disclosure policy.
Among the evidence missing from the record were declarations from TANF recipients themselves or other concrete factual material showing that the policy was likely to produce the predicted decline in enrollment.
The judge also addressed the states’ arguments concerning administrative costs. The plaintiffs said they could face expenses associated with changing application procedures, updating systems, notifying recipients and complying with the new requirements.
Boasberg concluded that at least some of those costs stemmed from the states’ own legal requirements concerning notification and therefore could not establish the type of injury necessary for standing. He likewise found that other claimed harms, including potential federal enforcement or penalties, were too speculative at this stage.
The decision is important for another reason: Boasberg did not rule that the federal government's data-sharing policy is lawful on the merits.
Instead, the ruling concerned whether the plaintiffs had satisfied the legal requirements for preliminary relief. The states’ broader claims—including challenges involving federal administrative law, privacy protections and constitutional limits—remain part of the underlying litigation. The case is ongoing.
The administration has defended the policy as a mechanism for program integrity and eligibility verification. Separately, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in September stating that states participating in TANF and certain other federal assistance programs have obligations under federal law to report people they know are not lawfully present to DHS.
That legal position has intensified the dispute over how welfare-program information can be used and shared, particularly when immigration enforcement is involved.
For now, however, there is no preliminary injunction blocking the federal policy. The expanded information-sharing framework is scheduled to take effect September 30 while the underlying lawsuit proceeds.
The ruling therefore leaves the central legal questions unresolved: how far federal agencies may go in accessing and sharing welfare data, what privacy protections apply, and what evidence states must provide to obtain judicial intervention before a federal policy takes effect.
