Trump is holding hostage the emergency disaster relief and transit funding of states that don’t agree with his immigration demands, according to two lawsuits filed by several states Tuesday.
The lawsuits claim that the White House is using cuts to federal aid to threaten states into supporting President Trump’s mass deportations, putting their infrastructure and emergency response abilities at risk.
“By hanging a halt in this critical funding over states like a sword of Damocles, defendants impose immense harm on states, forcing them to choose between readiness for disasters and emergencies, on one hand, and exercising their judgment about how to best use scarce resources to investigate and prosecute crimes on the other,” a draft of one of the complaints states.
One of the parties to the lawsuits, New York, claims that it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for bomb squads, hazmat units, emergency relief services, and SWAT teams that were vital in the state’s response to hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Other states joining the lawsuit include California, Rhode Island, Illinois, and more than 12 others. In one of the complaints, they cite the Department of Homeland Security’s new “Standard Terms and Conditions,” which state that emergency relief grants to states depend on them providing help with deportation efforts and ending any program that “benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”
The other lawsuit, filed by many of the same states, is directed at the Department of Transportation over the agency’s declaration last month that it would halt funding for any state that doesn’t cooperate with the Trump administration on immigration.
“On April 24, 2025, United States Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy issued a letter to all recipients of U.S. DOT funding announcing its policy, for the first time, of imposing an immigration enforcement condition on all U.S. DOT funding,” the lawsuit draft states.
In both lawsuits, the states claim that their funding had already been approved by Congress without conditions, making the White House’s attempt to withhold funds illegal. It also seems to be an attempt by Trump to impound funds already appropriated by Congress, setting up a constitutional crisis.
But these two lawsuits aren’t even the first examples of Trump trying to withhold funds from states going against his deportation agenda: A federal judge found last month that the White House tried to secretly withhold disaster relief funds from states with immigration policies counter to Trump’s agenda. It seems that Trump is trying to strongarm state governments by using needed funding against them.
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