A Manhattan federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore nearly $34 million in antiterrorism and security funding for the New York City subway and regional railroads that he said had been withheld illegally.
In August, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would receive the money. Less than two months later, without explanation or any note to the authority, FEMA cut the award to zero. The agency said later that it had done so because New York City is a so-called sanctuary city for undocumented people, the judge noted.
On Sept. 30, New York State sued to regain the money, which, the judge said, was needed to protect the daily riders of the subways, commuter trains and buses and users of the bridges and tunnels.
“The withholding of these funds is arbitrary, capricious and a blatant violation of the law,” wrote the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, of Federal District Court. He said he was granting a permanent injunction requiring the government to grant the funding to the authority.
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and Letitia James, the state attorney general whose office sued to restore the funding, said in a joint statement that the ruling “affirmed that this administration cannot punish New York by arbitrarily wiping out critical security resources and defunding law enforcement.”
The Trump administration has claimed increasing power to stop and start the flow of federal money to local governments and educational institutions, straining the Constitution’s separation of powers. Since just the beginning of the federal government’s shutdown on Oct. 1, the administration has halted nearly $28 billion that had been reserved for more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts and states.
New York’s lawsuit named as defendants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Kristi Noem, and FEMA and its acting administrator, David Richardson. Neither agency immediately responded to requests for comment on the ruling.
The money in question — $33,898,500 — was New York’s share of the Transit Security Grant Program, which was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Jessica S. Tisch, New York City’s police commissioner, said last week that the program supported efforts like bomb squads, canine teams and undercover officers who have ferreted out chemical and nuclear threats. There have been eight plots targeting the city subway since the Sept. 11 attacks, Ms. Tisch said.
Ms. Hochul has said that of the 21 transit agencies nationwide that had applied for the security grant this year, New York’s was the only one refused.
Judge Kaplan, in his 28-page opinion, said there was “no ambiguity” about the reason for the government’s decision to cut the funding — “New York City’s status as a sanctuary jurisdiction.”
Without that “improper consideration,” the judge said, the M.T.A. would have received the funds.
Benjamin Weiser is a Times reporter covering the federal courts and U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, and the justice system more broadly.
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