Search Articles
MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to restore Department of Homeland Security anti-terrorism security funds for New York City’s MTA subway system, which the Empire State says were blocked in retribution against its immigration sanctuary policies.
On the eve of the federal government shutdown, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed an Administrative Procedure Act complaint late Tuesday against the Trump administration over its decision to cut off nearly $34 million in federal funding for New York’s anti-terrorism security efforts under FEMA’s Transit Security Grant Program.
Ruling from the bench on Wednesday afternoon, Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan granted New York state’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, finding that the allocated federal grant money is required to “be distributed ‘solely’ on the risk of terrorist activities” and not for any other reasons.
Kaplan, whom Bill Clinton appointed in 1994, pointed to the city’s history of terrorist bombings and attempted attacks in the past three decades, noting the geographic proximity of the Manhattan federal court building to the site of the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001, “in which 3,000 people died within sight of this courthouse.”
Kaplan also observed that a recent decision not to hold a criminal trial for accused 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the same Lower Manhattan courthouse, despite pressure from Congress and the administration, “happened because of an acute fear of terrorist attack.”
Kaplan enumerated other terror attacks in the city, underscoring the Big Apple’s long history as a target: the earlier 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, a Taliban-trained Times Square bombing in 2010, two attempted pressure cooker bombings in 2015, the Chelsea bomber in 2016, the bloody West Side bike path truck rampage in 2017, a misfired attempted suicide bombing in Port Authority, and a mass shooting in the Brooklyn subway in 2022.
With that history of terror plots targeting New York City, Kaplan noted that New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority has received about $842 million since the Transit Security Grant Program was established in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
The state of New York, in its complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, argues the Department of Homeland Security’s actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act, exceed statutory authority, and violate the Constitution’s principles of equal sovereignty.
The civil complaint also seeks injunctive relief to compel the Department of Homeland Security to restore New York’s full allocation of Transit Security Grant Program funds and to ensure future awards are distributed based solely on risk, as the law requires.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul derided the Trump administration’s defunding of the state’s mass transit security program as “political payback and an attack on New York and its residents.”
“Every New Yorker should be outraged,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “From the construction worker who could lose their job, to the commuter stuck on a delayed train, to the families who rely on brave law enforcement officers to keep them safe.”
Department of Justice representatives were unable to respond to request for comment on Kaplan’s ruling on Wednesday, citing the government shutdown.
Follow @jruss_jrussSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.