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Connecticut Gets Funds Frozen By Trump Administration Over Immigration

Courtesy of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services
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Connecticut will again be eligible to receive more than $6 million dollars in federal policing grants that had been suspended by the Trump administration over the state’s immigration policy.

The Department of Justice ended the grants for Connecticut in 2017, when it said the state did not comply with new requirements that local and state police offer more cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The DOJ challenged a state law called the Trust Act, which said people could not be held by police solely because of their immigration status.

The latest change in eligibility requirements under the Biden Administration ends a years-long lawsuit between the Department of Justice and six other states.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the DOJ grant requirements should have never required local officers to act as federal immigration agents.

Cassandra Basler, a former senior editor at WSHU, came to the station by way of Columbia Journalism School in New York City. When she's not reporting on wealth and poverty, she's writing about food and family.