Judge: Admin Must Restore Disaster Aid 12/24 06:19

   

   PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- A federal judge has blocked the Trump 
administration's attempt to reallocate federal Homeland Security funding away 
from states that refuse to cooperate with certain federal immigration 
enforcement.

   U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy's ruling on Monday solidified a win for the 
coalition of 12 attorneys general that sued the administration earlier this 
year after being alerted that their states would receive drastically reduced 
federal grants due to their "sanctuary" jurisdictions.

   In total, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency reduced more than $233 million from Connecticut, Delaware, 
the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, 
Vermont, and Washington. The money is part of a $1 billion program where 
allocations are supposed to be based on assessed risks, with states then 
largely passing most of the money on to police and fire departments.

   The cuts were unveiled shortly after a separate federal judge in a different 
legal challenge ruled it was unconstitutional for the federal government to 
require states to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get FEMA 
disaster funding.

   In her 48-page ruling, McElroy found that the federal government was 
weighing states' police on federal immigration enforcement on whether to reduce 
federal funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program and others.

   "What else could defendants' decisions to cut funding to specific 
counterterrorism programming by conspicuous round numbered amounts -- including 
by slashing off the millions-place digits of awarded sums -- be if not 
arbitrary and capricious? Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is 
required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this 
result," McElroy wrote.

   The Trump-appointed judge then ordered the Department of Homeland Security 
to restore the previously announced funding allocations to the plaintiff states.

   "Defendants' wanton abuse of their role in federal grant administration is 
particularly troublesome given the fact that they have been entrusted with a 
most solemn duty: safeguarding our nation and its citizens," McElroy wrote. 
"While the intricacies of administrative law and the terms and conditions on 
federal grants may seem abstract to some, the funding at issue here supports 
vital counterterrorism and law enforcement programs."

   McElroy notably cited the recent Brown University attack, where a gunman 
killed two students and injured nine others, as an event where the $1 billion 
federal program would be vital in responding to such a tragedy.

   "To hold hostage funding for programs like these based solely on what appear 
to be defendants' political whims is unconscionable and, at least here, 
unlawful," the Rhode Island-based judge wrote in her ruling, issued little more 
than a week after the Brown shooting.

   DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the department 
plans on fighting the order.

   "This judicial sabotage threatens the safety of our states, counties, towns, 
and weakens the entire nation," McLaughlin said. "We will fight to restore 
these critical reforms and protect American lives."

   Meanwhile, attorneys general who sued the administration applauded the order.

   "This victory ensures that the Trump Administration cannot punish states 
that refuse to help carry out its cruel immigration agenda, particularly by 
denying them lifesaving funding that helps prepare for and respond to disasters 
and emergencies," said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a 
statement.