A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s try to reallocate federal Homeland Security funding away from states that refuse to cooperate with sure federal immigration enforcement.
US District Judge Mary McElroy’s ruling on Monday solidified a win for the coalition of 12 attorneys normal that sued the administration earlier this yr after being alerted that their states would obtain drastically decreased federal grants due to their “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
In whole, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency decreased greater than $233 million from Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The money is a part of a $1 billion program the place allocations are supposed to be primarily based on assessed dangers, with states then largely passing a lot of the money on to police and fireplace departments.
The cuts have been unveiled shortly after a separate federal judge in a different legal challenge ruled it was unconstitutional for the federal authorities to require states to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get FEMA disaster funding.
In her 48-page ruling, McElroy discovered that the federal authorities was weighing states’ police on federal immigration enforcement on whether or not to scale back federal funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program and others.
“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? Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this result,” McElroy wrote.
The Trump-appointed judge then ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore the beforehand introduced funding allocations to the plaintiff states.
“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. “While the intricacies of administrative law and the terms and conditions on federal grants may seem abstract to some, the funding at issue here supports vital counterterrorism and law enforcement programs.”
McElroy notably cited the current Brown University assault, the place a gunman killed two college students and injured 9 others, as an occasion the place the $1 billion federal program can be important in responding to such a tragedy.
“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,” the Rhode Island-based judge wrote in her ruling, issued little greater than per week after the Brown capturing.
DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin mentioned in an announcement that the division plans on preventing the order.
“This judicial sabotage threatens the safety of our states, counties, towns, and weakens the entire nation,” McLaughlin mentioned. “We will fight to restore these critical reforms and protect American lives.”
Meanwhile, attorneys normal who sued the administration applauded the order.
“This victory ensures that the Trump Administration cannot punish states that refuse to help carry out its cruel immigration agenda, particularly by denying them lifesaving funding that helps prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies,” mentioned Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in an announcement.