Trump administration flouted court order on FEMA grant funding, US judge rules
By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration violated a previous court order by implementing a nearly identical policy that once again requires the state to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement as a condition of receiving grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
U.S. District Judge William Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, wrote that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did exactly what the Sept. 24 order prohibited by imposing new immigration-related conditions that states must agree to in order to receive emergency preparedness grants from FEMA.
In his earlier ruling, the judge rejected conditions the department had imposed on grant awards that 20 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia argued were designed to force them to comply with the Republican president’s crackdown on immigrants.
After Smith made the decision, the administration issued new grant awards to states where immigration enforcement requirements were nearly identical; but there was a clause stating that these would only come into force if Smith’s decision was postponed or overturned.
Smith said that “the conditional nature of the fig leaf of the requirement makes little difference” as the administration once again illegally forces states to help federal immigration enforcement or give up millions of dollars in funding.
“Defendants’ new position is not a good-faith effort to comply with the order; it is a clumsy attempt to force states into making promises they are not obligated to keep, at the risk of losing the critical disaster and other funds already appropriated by Congress.
The judge, appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, blocked enforcement of the new conditions and asked the administration to amend the grant documents to remove them by next week.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The administration had maintained that it was complying with Smith’s earlier decision and was simply trying to preserve the ability to once again impose immigration conditions if his decision was later overturned.
The lawsuit is one of a series of lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general in Rhode Island and other New England states, most commonly used by plaintiffs seeking orders that block Trump’s agenda.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Deepa Babington)
