Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (38th District of CA)
WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Linda T. Sánchez (D-Calif.) today called on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to explain if victims of the Trump administration’s cruel and inhumane immigration enforcement tactics would be eligible to receive damages from the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” established by the Department of Justice.
“This slush fund is a plainly illegal diversion of taxpayer funds,” Congresswoman Sánchez wrote. “However, you have stated that the fund exists to compensate ‘victims of lawfare and weaponization.’ The terms ‘lawfare’ and ‘weaponization’ are not defined in any state or federal statute. Instead, they are seemingly defined in the Settlement Agreement as the ‘sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents in order to target individuals, groups, and entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, and/ or ideological reasons.’ That is a sweeping, politically-charged statement. I therefore ask whether the individuals in the following categories — whose grievances are documented, whose harms are real, and who in many cases have already prevailed in federal court — would be eligible to file claims for damages.”
The full text of the letter is available HERE and follows:
May 28, 2026
The Honorable Todd Blanche
Acting Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Mr. Blanche:
I write regarding the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” newly established by the Department of Justice — the $1.776 billion fund created when President Trump dropped his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.
This slush fund is a plainly illegal diversion of taxpayer funds. However, you have stated that the fund exists to compensate “victims of lawfare and weaponization.” The terms “lawfare” and “weaponization” are not defined in any state or federal statute. Instead, they are seemingly defined in the Settlement Agreement as the “sustained use of the levers of government power by Democrat elected officials, political and career federal employees, contractors, and agents in order to target individuals, groups, and entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, and/ or ideological reasons.” That is a sweeping, politically-charged statement. I therefore ask whether the individuals in the following categories — whose grievances are documented, whose harms are real, and who in many cases have already prevailed in federal court — would be eligible to file claims for damages:
Victims of unlawful ICE detention across the country. Federal judges have ruled against ICE detention practices in more than 10,000 cases — roughly 90 percent of all cases filed since the agency mandated universal detention. These are not allegations; they are judicial findings. Are these detainees eligible for damages?
The six people who died in California ICE detention centers. According to a 175-page report released by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, six people died in California immigration detention facilities over the past year, four at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, where families allege the facility failed to provide adequate medical care. May these families apply for damages?
Detainees subjected to chemical agents at Adelanto. The same state report documents an incident in which guards deployed pepper spray in a confined room holding approximately 50 people. Are those 50 people eligible to file claims under the terms of the fund?
Women strip-searched in front of male officers at Otay Mesa, San Diego. State investigators found that the Otay Mesa Detention Center is the only California facility with a policy of strip-searching detainees after every non-lawyer visit. Women described the searches as “humiliating” and “denigrating,” including being searched in front of male officers while menstruating. Some detainees stopped receiving family visits entirely to avoid the practice. May these women file claims?
Detainees denied adequate medical care at California City. At the California City detention center — a former state prison converted to ICE detention center by the Trump administration — state investigators described “crisis-level” medical staffing, with only one physician available for nearly 1,000 detainees. May detainees submit their medical records showing the results of being denied proper medical care as evidence of their entitlement to compensation?
Cary López Alvarado, a nine-months-pregnant U.S. citizen from Hawthorne, California. She was illegally arrested by immigration agents during a raid, detained, and subsequently went into premature labor and was hospitalized. Is she entitled to a claim?
Residents and families of the El Rancho Unified School District, Pico Rivera, California — my own constituents. Last July, surveillance cameras captured ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents trespassing on a school campus in my district, urinating in a parking lot adjacent to a preschool playground, in broad daylight. May these children and their parents file individual claims, or may the school district?
The administration’s own stated rationale would seem to encompass every one of them. And if the threshold for compensation is “victimhood at the hands of a federal agency,” these individuals — many of them U.S. citizens, many of them Californians, all of them subjected to documented and in some cases lethal, government misconduct — would seem to clear it far more easily than individuals convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers on January 6th.
I respectfully request a written response detailing the eligibility criteria for the Anti-Weaponization Fund, the process by which claims will be evaluated, and whether the categories of harm described above fall within scope.
Sincerely,
Linda T. Sánchez
Member of Congress
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