Immigration is federal, but almost everything it touches in daily life is administered by a state: the driver's license counter, the in-state tuition determination, the board that issues a professional license, the agency that decides eligibility for a state benefit, and the records systems that pass state information to federal ones. This subject covers where a state may condition something on status, where federal law forbids it, and what happens to each of those determinations when someone moves.
Federal restrictions on public benefits attach to federal money and to the federal share of joint programs. A state remains free to appropriate its own funds and to set its own eligibility, subject to enacting an affirmative law where the restriction on state and local benefits applies. The programs built this way are separate schemes with separate names, applications and appropriations, most commonly covering children, pregnant women and people inside the federal five-year waiting period.
A benefits agency assessing an applicant queries a federal verification system about that person's status. The query is about the applicant, it returns a status answer, and it is made because the program's eligibility rules require it. Separately, agencies exchange data for program integrity purposes under agreements that specify what may be shared and for what.
Public benefit programs assess two things separately. Financial eligibility is measured against household income and size, so the whole family is counted. Categorical eligibility, including immigration status, is assessed for the individual seeking the benefit. A citizen child living with parents who are ineligible remains eligible, and the parents' status is not a bar.
Moving during a pending immigration filing does not alter eligibility, does not restart the application and does not require it to be refiled. What it changes is administration: jurisdiction over the file may transfer to a different office, the interview will be scheduled at a different location, the queue at the receiving office may be longer or shorter than the one left behind, and every notice depends on an address obligation with a ten-day deadline.
There is no central address of record in American administration. The federal immigration agency, the immigration court, the postal service, the state motor vehicle agency, benefit programs, licensing boards and employers each hold an address independently, and each has its own change procedure. The federal obligation carries a short statutory deadline, the court obligation is separate from it, and a postal forwarding order satisfies neither.
Federal law directs states to require a social security number on professional license applications, as part of a child support enforcement scheme unconnected to immigration. Because a number is issued only with work authorization, that requirement operated as a status condition wherever a board treated it as mandatory. A growing group of states now accept an individual taxpayer identification number instead, or waive the requirement where no number exists.
