California and other states led by Democrat sued the Trump administration on Monday for supposedly stripping them of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal security and disaster financing based on their lack of will to help in the federal immigration application.
The lawsuit occurs only a few days after a federal judge in a separate case prohibited the administration from conditioning similar federal subsidies funds in the states that terminate their so -called “sanctuary” policies that protect immigrants.
California Atty. General Rob Bonta said that the last reduction of funds, of which the states were notified during the weekend, flew in front of the ruling last week. He criticized him as an illegal effort to force democratic states to comply with a federal immigration campaign that have no legal obligation to support.
“Tell me, how the breakdown of California's efforts to protect against terrorism makes our communities more safe?” Bonta said in a statement. “President Trump does not like not to be intimidated to make his first leg, ignoring our sovereign right to make decisions about how our resources for the law are better used to protect our communities.”
The White House sent questions about the lawsuit to the Department of National Security, which did not immediately answer a request for comments on Monday.
The agency has previously argued that its main mission is to defend the security of the nation against threats, even illegal immigration and, therefore, that it should be able to retain the funds of the states that believe they are not defending or are actively undermining that mission.
The financing in question, billions of dollars annually, is distributed to the states to “prepare, protect, respond and recover from catastrophic disasters”, and “even hazalized” has been distributed for decades by administrations of both political parties, argues the demand of the states.
Financing, authorized by Congress in part after disasters such as September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, pays for things such as salaries and training of lifeguards, tests of state computer systems due to vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, compact of mutual aid between regional partners and emergency responses to disasters, states said in their demand.
Bonta's office said California was waiting for about $ 165 million, but he was notified that he would receive $ 110 million, a $ 55 million cut or a third of his financing. Other blue states saw even higher reductions, with Illinois seeing a 69% reduction and New York receiving a 79% reduction, he said.
Other states that support Trump's administration immigration policies received great increases, and some increases of more than 100%, state states said.
They said that notifications did not provide justification for the reductions, noting that they were made to the National Security Department. And yet, the reason was clear, they said, even due to the recent comments of the National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem and other administration officials who have directly declared that states that do not cooperate with federal immigration policies and that maintain sanctuary policies would see reduced funds.
“The explanation of the last minute decision of DHS and FEMA to reallocate $ 233 million in national security funds, the decision of reallocation, is evident. Although for decades the federal subsidies programs have administered for decades in a fair and kphasic way, the current administration is taking money from their enemies,” the states wrote in their demand. “Or, as the secretary of the defendant, Noem, expressed it succinctly in an internal memorandum of February 19, says whose policies do not like 'should not receive a single dollar of the money from the department'”.
The states also presented a motion for a temporary restriction order to immediately block the clippings of funds, and prevent the Federal Emergency Management Agency from disbursementing the related funds that could not recover later, as the case progresses.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that the administration that established conditions related to immigration in similar emergency funds was “arbitrary and capricious”, and unconstitutional.
“The DHS justifies the conditions when pointing out its broad national security mission, but subsidy fund programs such as disaster relief, fire safety, prey safety and emergency preparation,” the judge wrote in that case. “The radical conditions related to immigration imposed on each subsidy administered by the DHS, regardless of their legal purpose, lack the necessary adaptation.”
Last month, another judge ruled in a third case that the Trump administration cannot deny funds to angels or other local jurisdictions based on their sanctuary policies.
In his demand on Monday, California and the other states argued that the Trump administration seemed “without flinching” for the ruling of last week against the funds prior to conditioning on the cooperation of the application of immigration.
After being “frustrated in her first attempt to coerce [the states] To enforce the Federal Law of Civil Immigration, “the states wrote,” DHS took another action without law “simply reallocating funds for” more favored jurisdictions “willing to support the repression of immigration of the administration.
Bonta said the law requires that these funds be distributed according to the objective evaluations of “threat and risk”, but weekend notifications showed that the Trump administration was doing little more than “hurrying to work in the order of last week” and “Force and coercion” the blue states to fulfill in a new way.
“This is an administration of repeat offenders without law that continues to violate the law,” he said.
Bonta said the demand is the 40 years that his office has presented against the current Trump administration to date. He said his office was talking with the office of Governor Gavin Newsom, and that both believe that “we deserve all the funds that have been appropriate.”
California joined in Monday's demand, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the Columbia district. All were also part of the previous challenging conditions in the litigation in such funds that were decided last week.
