Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings announced on November 6 that she won a court ruling protecting $1.1 million in congressionally authorized public safety grants to the state. Her office says the grants include money meant to keep law enforcement officers safe and fight crime. The ruling came from the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.

According to Jennings's office, the ruling blocks the federal government from attaching immigration-enforcement conditions to the grants. Jennings calls those conditions illegal. Her office says civil immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, not a state one.

The office says the ruling protects more than $485,000 for Delaware under Title II Part B of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. It also covers more than $686,000 under the Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program. That program funds efforts such as extreme risk protection order programs, mental health courts, drug courts and veterans treatment courts, the office says.

Jennings's office says the dispute goes back to last year, when the administration told states they could not access Victims of Crime Act funds unless they agreed to its immigration demands. A multistate coalition got those conditions removed from over $1.3 billion in VOCA funds, according to the office. This year, the office says, the U.S. Department of Justice applied the same conditions to new grants, including money for law enforcement and juvenile justice.

Jennings said the attempt to strip funding from law enforcement looked like other efforts by the administration to pressure her state, and she called it poorly conceived. The lawsuit was co-led by Jennings, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Rhode Island's attorney general, her office says.