Federal judge says Trump administration must restore disaster money to Democratic states
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s reallocation effort federal Homeland Security funding away from states that refuse to cooperate with certain federal immigration enforcement.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy’s ruling cemented a victory for a coalition of 12 attorneys general who sued the administration earlier this year after being warned their states would face steep cuts in federal aid because of their “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
In total, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency cut more than $233 million. Connecticut, Delaware, District of ColumbiaMassachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. The money is part of a $1 billion program in which allocations are expected to be based on assessed risks, with states largely directing most of the money to police and fire departments.
The cuts were announced shortly after a separate hearing by a federal judge. a different legal challenge ruled that it was unconstitutional The federal government requires states to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions in order to receive FEMA disaster funding.
McElroy found in his 48-page ruling that the federal government weighed state police over federal immigration enforcement over whether to reduce federal funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program and others.
“What else could Defendants’ decisions to do to cut off funding for certain counterterrorism programs by obvious round-robin numbers (including withholding millions of digits of amounts paid) be if not arbitrary and capricious? It would take neither a law degree nor a math degree to conclude that no reasonable, rational formula could have produced this result,” McElroy wrote.
The Trump-appointed judge then ordered the Department of Homeland Security to return previously announced funding allocations to plaintiff states.
“Defendants’ wanton abuse of their roles in federal grant administration is especially troubling given that they were given a very serious mission: to protect our nation and its citizens,” McElroy said. “While the intricacies of administrative law and the terms and conditions of federal grants may seem abstract to some, the funding at issue here supports vital counterterrorism and law enforcement programs.”
McElroy cited the recent Brown University shooting, in which a gunman killed two students and injured nine others, as an incident for which a $1 billion federal program would be vital in responding to such a tragedy.
“Providing hostage funding for such programs based solely on the political whims of the defendants is unconscionable and, at least here, illegal,” the Rhode Island-based judge wrote in his ruling, issued a little more than a week after Brown was shot.
Emails seeking comment were sent to DHS and FEMA.
“This victory ensures that the Trump Administration cannot punish states that refuse to help carry out its brutal immigration agenda, especially by denying them life-saving funds that help prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement.
