Politics

City of Chicago Sues Trump Administration Over Restrictions Placed on Emergency Relief Funding

The city of Chicago is suing the Trump administration over “unlawful conditions” placed on Department of Homeland Security grants that would force the city to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion efforts or risk losing that funding.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office on Monday said Chicago and eight other local governments had filed the suit in federal court in order to protect tens of millions of dollars in critical funding necessary for preparation and response to emergencies such as public safety threats and natural disasters.

“Chicago will always uphold the importance of our diversity,” Johnson said in a statement. “Ensuring that all Chicagoans have an opportunity to succeed is not discrimination; it’s just basic fairness. We will fight to ensure our first responders have the tools they need, that our commitment to equity and inclusion remains strong, and that we receive every federal dollar intended for public safety.”

President Donald Trump and local officials across Chicago and Illinois have already been at odds throughout the year over withheld funding, increased immigration enforcement and the president’s repeated steps to deploy National Guard troops in the state.

Chicago was joined in the new lawsuit — filed Monday in the Northern District of Illinois — by other major cities including Boston, New York, Baltimore, Minneapolis and Denver.

According to Johnson’s office, the grant conditions state that unless the city certifies it does not operate any programs “that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology,” it would lose the funding.

Already 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.

In the 70-page lawsuit complaint filed Monday, the cities claim the Trump administration is using that critical funding as a “cudgel” by threatening to “hamstring local governments’ emergency-management functions” unless they agree to restrict their diversity efforts.

Without that funding, the lawsuit alleges, people across the country will face “greater risk of suffering and death homes and businesses will face greater risk of destruction; and state and local governments will suffer significant economic consequences to their budgets and workforces.”

“The federal government cannot demand that cities dismantle DEI programs in exchange for disaster relief,” Chicago’s Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said in a statement. “We are taking action to ensure that Chicago’s emergency response systems remain robust, inclusive, and grounded in constitutional principles.”

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