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Trump Administration Backs Down on Blocking Access to Nearly $1.4 Billion for Victims and Survivors of Crimes
BALTIMORE, MD – After joining a multi-state lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on August 18, 2025, Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today announced the DOJ has now dropped its plan to impose unlawful conditions on nearly $1.4 billion in Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants. The conditions would have applied to more than $23 million in grants designated for Maryland. Earlier this year, the Trump administration, disregarding the clear letter of the law and intent of Congress, declared that states would be unable to access VOCA funds – used to support victims and survivors of crimes – unless they comply with the administration’s extreme immigration priorities.
“The Trump administration’s attempt to hold these critical funds hostage to advance its political agenda was unlawful, and we're pleased that our lawsuit forced them abandon this harmful scheme and free up more than $23 million that Maryland communities depend on to keep people safe,” said Attorney General Brown. “Thanks to our lawsuit, survivors of crime will continue to get the resources they need to rebuild and heal from traumatic events that disrupted their lives.”
The Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) was enacted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, creating a series of grant programs to enable states to provide critical resources and services to victims and survivors of crime as they try to restore normalcy in their lives: victim and witness advocacy services; emergency shelter; medical, funeral, and burial expenses; crime scene cleanup; sexual assault forensic exams; and much more. These funding streams – totaling more than a billion dollars a year nationwide – have long ensured that states could fulfill their most fundamental duties: to protect public safety and redress harm to their residents. States use these funds to assist nearly 9 million crime victims per year and to provide compensation for more than 200,000 victims’ claims per year. Congress has required the distribution of nearly all VOCA funding to states based on fixed statutory formulas and has repeatedly acted to ensure sufficient funding for crime victims, including after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
However, the Trump administration, through the DOJ, previously declared that states, along with the victims and survivors they serve, would be blocked from these funds unless they comply with the administration’s political agenda – namely its immigration enforcement priorities. In order to receive these funds, states were told that they must devote resources to assisting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with civil immigration enforcement efforts – a federal, not state, government responsibility.
Following the lawsuit brought by the coalition, the DOJ abandoned its plan to impose conditions on $178 million in VOCA Victim Assistance Grants and $1.2 billion in VOCA Victim Compensation grants. These grants will continue to be provided to states with no unlawful immigration enforcement conditions placed on them.
In filing the lawsuit, Attorney General Brown was joined by the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‛i, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
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