BY EMMANUEL OGBONNA
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to redirect Homeland Security funding away from states that decline to cooperate with certain federal immigration enforcement measures, delivering a significant legal victory to a coalition of states that challenged the policy.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ruled Monday that the administration acted unlawfully when it sharply reduced federal grant allocations to states with so-called sanctuary policies. Her decision cements a win for 12 attorneys general who filed suit earlier this year after learning their states would face steep cuts in federal support because of their positions on immigration enforcement.
According to court filings, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency reduced more than $233 million in funding to Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. The money is part of a roughly $1 billion grant program intended to bolster counterterrorism preparedness, emergency response and public safety. Under the program’s design, funds are supposed to be distributed based on risk assessments, with states typically passing most of the money on to local police, fire departments and emergency management agencies.
The funding reductions were announced shortly after a separate federal judge, in a different lawsuit, ruled that the federal government could not constitutionally require states to assist with immigration enforcement as a condition for receiving FEMA disaster aid. Together, the cases underscore the growing judicial resistance to tying federal emergency and security funding to immigration policy compliance.
In a detailed 48-page opinion, McElroy concluded that the administration improperly considered states’ cooperation with federal immigration authorities when deciding whether to reduce their grant awards. She sharply criticized the way the cuts were calculated, describing them as arbitrary and lacking any rational connection to public safety needs or statutory requirements.
“What else could defendants’ decisions to cut funding to specific counterterrorism programming by conspicuous round-numbered amounts be if not arbitrary and capricious?” McElroy wrote. She added that neither legal expertise nor advanced mathematics was required to see that no reasonable formula could explain the reductions, which appeared to lop off large, rounded sums rather than follow any coherent risk-based analysis.
McElroy, who was appointed to the bench by President Trump, ordered the Department of Homeland Security to immediately restore the previously announced funding levels to the plaintiff states. She said the administration’s conduct represented a misuse of its authority over federal grants.
“Defendants’ wanton abuse of their role in federal grant administration is particularly troublesome given the fact that they have been entrusted with a most solemn duty: safeguarding our nation and its citizens,” the judge wrote. While the legal details of grant administration may seem abstract, she noted, the money at issue directly supports essential counterterrorism and law enforcement programs that protect lives.
In her ruling, McElroy pointed to the recent mass shooting at Brown University, where a gunman killed two students and injured nine others, as a stark example of the kind of emergency in which these federal funds are critical. The grants, she said, are designed to help states and local agencies prepare for and respond to precisely such tragedies.
“To hold hostage funding for programs like these based solely on what appear to be defendants’ political whims is unconscionable and, at least here, unlawful,” McElroy wrote. Her decision was issued little more than a week after the Brown University attack, lending added urgency to her assessment of the stakes involved.
The Trump administration swiftly condemned the ruling and signaled it would challenge the decision. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the order undermines public safety and interferes with the administration’s efforts to enforce immigration laws.
“This judicial sabotage threatens the safety of our states, counties and towns and weakens the entire nation,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “We will fight to restore these critical reforms and protect American lives.”
Attorneys general who brought the lawsuit praised the ruling, calling it a clear rebuke of what they described as political retaliation against states that disagree with the administration’s immigration agenda.
“This victory ensures that the Trump administration cannot punish states that refuse to help carry out its cruel immigration policies, particularly by denying them lifesaving funding that helps prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
The ruling adds to a growing body of court decisions limiting the federal government’s ability to condition public safety and disaster funding on immigration enforcement cooperation. As the administration weighs its next legal steps, the decision is likely to have broad implications for how federal grants are administered and how far the executive branch can go in using funding as leverage in policy disputes with the states.
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