By Ginika Igboke
A federal judge in Rhode Island has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to divert Homeland Security funding away from states that decline to assist with certain federal immigration enforcement actions.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ruled Monday in favor of a coalition of 12 attorneys general who sued the administration after several states were notified they would receive reduced federal grants because of their sanctuary jurisdiction policies.
The order applies to funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which had reduced more than $233 million in grants to Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The funding is part of a $1 billion program based on risk assessments and is primarily allocated to local law enforcement and emergency services.
Attorneys general from California, Illinois, and New Jersey were also part of the coalition challenging the policy.
In her 48-page ruling, McElroy found that the administration improperly considered states’ immigration enforcement positions when making funding decisions.
“What else could defendants’ decisions to cut funding to specific counterterrorism programming by conspicuous round numbered amounts—including by slashing off the millions-place digits of awarded sums—be if not arbitrary and capricious?” McElroy wrote. “Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this result.”
She ordered DHS to restore the previously announced funding allocations to the states involved in the lawsuit.
“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,” McElroy wrote, adding that the funds support critical counterterrorism and law enforcement programs.
The judge cited the recent attack near Brown University, in which two students were killed and nine others injured, as an example of the type of incident where the federal funding program would be essential to emergency response efforts.
“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,” she wrote.
DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the department plans to challenge the ruling.
“This judicial sabotage threatens the safety of our states, counties, towns, and weakens the entire nation,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “We will fight to restore these critical reforms and protect American lives.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit was filed in September by 11 states and the District of Columbia, which argued that the administration’s directive to reduce funding to sanctuary jurisdictions violated federal law and sought to coerce compliance with immigration policies.
The ruling follows a series of similar decisions. In October, a federal judge permanently barred DHS from withholding $34 million in transportation security funding from New York City because of its sanctuary status. In August, another ruling blocked funding cuts to 34 cities and counties over sanctuary policies. Earlier, in April, a judge halted broader defunding efforts targeting sanctuary cities such as San Francisco and Santa Clara, California.
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