DOJ withdrew a 1997 opinion, cutting some lawful immigrants off from federal benefit programs

On December 16, 2025, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum opinion for the Department of Health and Human Services withdrawing DOJ's 1997 interpretation of "Federal means-tested public benefit" under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The 1997 opinion had told HHS and the Department of Housing and Urban Development that the phrase could permissibly be read to cover only benefits funded through mandatory federal spending, leaving benefits funded through discretionary programs open to authorized noncitizens. OLC's new opinion rejects that reading as no longer the "best" interpretation of the statute -- citing the Supreme Court's 2024 overruling of Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo -- and holds that any federal benefit whose eligibility or amount depends on a household's income, resources, or financial need is a restricted means-tested benefit, regardless of how it is funded.

The reinterpretation newly excludes lawful permanent residents and other "qualified" noncitizens from a broader set of federal benefit programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for five years after their entry into the country. White House counselor Stephen Miller publicly framed the change as ending decades of what he called bureaucratic "sabotage" of the 1996 law. The opinion is a further narrowing of the same PRWORA framework that, five months earlier, DOJ and four other federal agencies had already tightened by withdrawing a separate set of benefit exemptions.