A federal judge in Rhode Island on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of trying to “bully” states into accepting conditions that require them to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get disaster funding after he ruled earlier that those actions were unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge William Smith, who was appointed by former Republican President George W. Bush, issued a summary judgment last month ruling that the Department of Homeland Security couldn’t impose the conditions.
Despite the September ruling, a coalition of 20 state Democratic attorneys general argued the agency still attached the conditions to the grants along with language suggesting they would apply if the case was “stayed, vacated, or extinguished.”
Smith ordered Homeland Security to permanently stop enforcing those conditions against plaintiff states. The judge also mandated that the agency must amend documents to states within seven days to eliminate compliance requirements related to federal immigration law.
Smith accused the agency of doing exactly what his order forbids, stating the conditional nature of the requirement makes little difference.
“Defendants’ new condition is not a good faith effort to comply with the order,” he wrote. “It is a ham-handed attempt to bully the states into making promises they have no obligation to make at the risk of losing critical disaster and other funding already appropriated by Congress.”
The states emphasized their reliance on federal funding to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, arguing that the immigration enforcement conditions jeopardized funding for essential functions like mitigating earthquake and wildfire risks.
The Department of Homeland Security has been criticized for using disaster funding as leverage to enforce federal immigration policies, an action deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
The plaintiffs articulated that such a tactic not only violates constitutional protections but also the Administrative Procedure Act governing federal agency regulations.
The agency’s defense, claiming the matter was moot since some programs were excluded, was dismissed by the judge, underscoring the continuing implications of the case for state autonomy and federal relations.
