Judge rules Trump administration can’t require states to help on immigration to get transport money
By MICHAEL CASEY and REBECCA BOONE BOSTON AP A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in transportation funds from states that don t agree to participate in certain immigration enforcement actions Related Articles Trump bans negative signage at national parks asks visitors to snitch on unpatriotic text Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for a third time without clear legal basis ICE raids and their uncertainty scare off workers and baffle businesses ICE takes custody of Spanish-language journalist arrested at Georgia protest US resumes visas for foreign students but demands access to social media accounts Twenty states sued after they declared Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to cut off funding to states that refused to comply with President Donald Trump s immigration agenda U S District Judge John McConnell Jr barred federal transportation administrators from carrying out that threat before the lawsuit is fully resolved The Court finds that the States have demonstrated they will face irreparable and continuing harm if forced to agree to Defendants unlawful and unconstitutional immigration conditions imposed in order to receive federal transportation grant funds wrote McConnell the chief judge for the federal district of Rhode island The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers are at liability of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities and will have to scale back reconsider or cancel ongoing transportation projects On April states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts or peril losing the congressionally appropriated funds No funding was directly withheld but several of the states feared the move was imminent Attorneys general from California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Hawaii Illinois Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Nevada New Jersey New Mexico New York Oregon Rhode Island Washington Wisconsin and Vermont filed the lawsuit in May saying the new so-called Duffy Directive put them in an impossible position The States can either attempt to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional condition that would surrender their sovereign control over their own law enforcement officers and reduce immigrants willingness to document crimes and participate in constituents robustness programs or they can forfeit tens of billions of dollars of funds they rely on regularly to backing the roads highways railways airways ferries and bridges that connect their communities and homes the attorneys general wrote in court documents But acting Rhode Island U S Attorney Sara Miron Bloom advised the judge that Congress has given the Department of Transportation the legal right to set conditions for the grant money it administers to states and that requiring compliance and cooperation with federal law enforcement is a reasonable exercise of that discretion Allowing the federal leadership to withhold the funds while the lawsuit moves forward doesn t cause any lasting harm Bloom wrote in court documents because that money can reliably be disbursed later if needed But requiring the federal governing body to release the money to uncooperative states will likely make it impossible to recoup later if the Department of Transportation wins the circumstance Bloom revealed
