US judge blocks Trump from tying states’ disaster aid to immigration enforcement
By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -A Federal Judge decided that the Trump administration’s effort to cooperate with immigration sanctions to get billions of dollars in emergency and disaster aid to cooperate with immigration sanctions was illegal and contrary to the constitution.
US Regional Judge William Smith, Rhode Island, Providence, 20 Democratic states and Columbia region, along with the US Department of Internal Security has caused the capabilities of grant financing.
These states, which filed a lawsuit in May, argued that the department used federal financing for emergency preparation and disaster assistance to force the Republican President to adhere to the harsh immigration agenda.
The department, which controls the US immigration and Customs Conservation and Federal Emergency Management Agency, argued that these conditions were right to implement the Federal Migration Law.
However, Smith said that the policy of the department was arbitrary and violated the US Constitution because it applied comprehensive conditions of migration to all grants, regardless of their legal purposes.
“If states refuse to comply with uncertain immigration requirements, rejecting such funds leaves without a meaningful choice, especially in cases where state budgets are already committed.”
The department did not respond immediately to the request for comments.
New conditions applied to all grants managed by DHS. After the lawsuit was filed, the management said that they decided to apply them only to a subset of grant programs.
However, the appointment of Republican President George W. Bush, Smith, said that DHS never officially canceled the policy, that is, the states, including the fact that the states have not been touched, they would depend on conditions connected to each grant.
As a result, the states “face a dilemma: either confirming the compliance with controversial federal immigration policies, or the risk of losing the financing of critical emergency and disaster avoidance,” he said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Mark Porter and Lisa Shumakmer)
