On December 30, 2025, the US Department of Justice released Notices of Funding Opportunities for victims of trafficking grants, 90 days after the grant terms should have begun on October 1, 2025. Due to this delay, over 5,000 survivors of trafficking have lost or are at risk of losing victim services. FNUSA led a nationwide campaign advocating for the DOJ to restore this funding, and celebrates this success.
These grants provide funding for comprehensive services like case management, reunification for families separated by trafficking, housing, mental healthcare, assistance in finding safer jobs, legal support, and community support. All of these components support survivors in long-term healing and financial stability. With this funding, service providers assisted over 17,000 survivors in fiscal year 2024.
Through our joint campaign with Freedom United, over 4,000 people sent letters urging the DOJ to release the $88 million in funding set aside for trafficking victim services. Seventy-three anti-trafficking and anti-violence organizations joined our letter to Congress, urging them to ensure that the funds they appropriated for services reached the hands of service providers. After over 90 days of advocacy, these funds are finally on their way to helping survivors rebuild their lives.
While we recognize this important step in releasing the grant opportunities, we are concerned that some language in the Notices of Funding Opportunities could threaten survivors’ access to lifesaving services due to new interpretations of grantee responsibilities and purported limitations on legal services for immigrants. This language threatens survivors’ access to lifesaving services and comes with little guidance on how it should be interpreted within existing confidentiality and anti-discrimination laws. Without the promise of legal protections, confidentiality, and culturally-relevant services, survivors are less likely to come forward and more likely to stay in dangerous trafficking situations.
Delaying and restricting access to services does nothing to prevent trafficking or protect survivors. Instead, it puts survivors in danger and limits their ability to seek safety for themselves and their loved ones. Every obstacle that prevents survivors from accessing services hands another tool to traffickers. While we are pleased to see progress in moving the funding forward, we are concerned about these restrictions and limitations threatening survivors’ lives.
