Trump breaches court order by tying states’ FEMA relief to immigration compliance

(CN) — The Trump administration is continuing to make federal emergency relief contingent on states’ compliance with immigration enforcement, a judge ruled Tuesday, despite a court order barring that very action.

Senior U.S. District Judge William Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, scolded the government for what he called a “ham-handed attempt to bully the states into making promises they have no obligation to make.”

In September, Smith ruled that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is barred from enforcing new requirements that effectively withhold disaster aid from states with so-called “sanctuary” immigration laws.

But despite that order, Smith wrote Tuesday that the department tried to implement a workaround: adding a trigger clause to the FEMA disaster relief grants that would force states to comply with the immigration provisions if the judge’s prior injunction gets overturned on appeal.

“In effect, defendants have done precisely what the memorandum and order forbids, which is requiring plaintiff states to agree to assist in federal immigration enforcement or else forgo the award of DHS grants,” Smith wrote in a three-page ruling. “The fig leaf conditional nature of the requirement makes little difference.”

“No matter how confident defendants may be of their chances on appeal, at present, the contested conditions are unlawful,” the judge added. “Plaintiff states therefore have a right to accept the awards without regard to the contested conditions.”

The states complained earlier this month of potential violations to Smith’s order, writing in a letter to the judge that Homeland Security “copy-pasted the contested conditions” into a new grant term with the trigger clause.

This was “not a good faith effort to comply with the order,” Smith ruled Tuesday. He found that the government’s attempted workaround is indeed a violation of his September order.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.

A batch of Democratic states sued the administration in May, claiming that the government was “hanging a halt in … critical funding over states like a sword of Damocles” by requiring collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to get FEMA funds.

In doing so, the states claimed that they were put in the impossible situation of having to choose between emergency readiness and how to best use their local law enforcement. Complying with the government in this case, the states argued, would pull police resources off of crimefighting efforts and onto the government’s immigration agenda.

The requirements also mandate that states end any program that “benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration,” which the states say is a breach of federalism.

“Defendants’ grant funding hostage scheme violates two key principles that underlie the American system of checks and balances: Agencies in the executive branch cannot act contrary to the authority conferred on them by Congress, and the federal government cannot use the spending power to coerce states into adopting its preferred policies,” the states argue.

Emergency relief is just one of the ways the Trump administration has attempted to get states to comply with its mass deportation agenda, which has been scrutinized by Democratic lawmakers and civil rights leaders as an unlawful affront to the Constitution.

Federal authorities also tried to tie immigration enforcement to transportation funding — another move that prompted a massive lawsuit from a multistate coalition.

“More cars, planes, and trains will crash, and more people will die as a result, if defendants cut off federal funding to plaintiff states,” the states claim in that complaint, also filed in May.

Federal courts around the nation have been generally unkind to the Trump administration’s efforts to meddle with congressionally approved funding. Even judges appointed by President Donald Trump have denounced the administration’s continued efforts to consolidate spending power to the executive branch.

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