US District Judge William E. Smith of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration violated the court’s previous order requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to remove certain conditions for states to accept Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants.
Following the court’s September order mandating the removal of these conditions, the Trump administration issued new FEMA award letters to states that were nearly identical to those the court had already deemed unlawful. The only difference was that the new letters specified that the contested conditions would take effect if the administration’s appeal succeeded. This effectively required states to agree in advance to the same disputed terms, despite the court’s prior ruling.
In its decision on Tuesday, the court found that the new award letters do exactly what the prior order forbade. Calling the new provision a “ham-handed attempt to bully the states into making promises they have no obligation to make,” Judge Smith argued that regardless of the administration’s prospects on appeal, “at present, the contested conditions are unlawful.”
The conditions stem from a Trump-issued executive order aimed at preventing “sanctuary jurisdictions” from receiving federal funds. They required states to assist in federal immigration enforcement operations, including participating in joint operations and providing federal officials with access to detainees upon request.
Before the court’s September order, states risked losing FEMA disaster and emergency management grants if they refused to comply. The court found these conditions violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Spending Clause of the US Constitution. The Trump administration had previously argued that these conditions were lawful and that the lawsuit was largely moot, while the affected states maintained that the requirements represented an unlawful reallocation of DHS funds.
Judge Smith set aside the administration’s reimposed conditions and the newly added provision, ordering DHS to amend the FEMA award letters within seven days.
