Politics

Immigration Enforcement Conditions Placed on Federal Disaster Aid for Illinois and Other States ‘Unconstitutional,’ Judge Rules

A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s attempts to force states to comply with unlawful immigration conditions in order to obtain federal disaster relief funding, ruling such efforts are “unconstitutional” after officials from Illinois and other states sued.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined 19 other Democratic attorneys general and the District of Columbia in filing the suit in May, claiming the departments of Homeland Security and Transportation were attempting to illegally coerce states into enacting sweeping immigration enforcement by threatening to withhold billions in funding if they refused.

On Wednesday, Rhode Island District Judge William Smith ruled that the conditions the Trump administration placed onto that funding are “invalid.”

“In the end,” he wrote in a 45-page ruling, “the Court finds that the contested conditions fail, regardless of DHS’s arguments related to its authority to promulgate them, because the contested conditions are both arbitrary and capricious under the (Administrative Procedure Act) and unconstitutional under the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”

In light of that finding, Smith added that a permanent injunction preventing the enforcement of those contested conditions “is also appropriate.”

Earlier this year, DHS officials revised the terms governing all federal grants the department oversees, ordering that jurisdictions that failed to enforce federal immigration law risked losing all DHS-administered funds, which includes disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

That meant states like Illinois — which prohibits state and local law enforcement officers from assisting federal immigration agents through the Illinois Trust Act — would no longer be eligible to receive that funding.

Those actions came as the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to withhold funding to self-proclaimed sanctuary cities and states, though these efforts have thus far been blocked by federal judges.

Because the funding was initially appropriated by Congress, the attorneys general claim the departments cannot simply withhold it by forcing cooperation with federal immigration officials. Raoul claimed those actions are both “illegal and unconstitutional” and will make Illinoisans less safe.

Raoul’s office said in May that Illinois last year received $2 billion in funding from the Department of Transportation and another $122 million from FEMA — dollars that were used to protect public safety, improve transportation infrastructure and fund disaster relief and flood mitigation.

A spokesperson for Raoul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

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