Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter
Attorney General William Tong, as part of a coalition of 12 attorneys general, filed an "emergency lawsuit" to stop the Trump administration from reallocating federal homeland security funding from states based on their compliance with the administration’s efforts to enforce federal immigration laws.
Tong's announcement complains that "four days before the end of the federal fiscal year", the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) significantly cut funding to states that are "unwilling to divert law enforcement resources away from core public safety services to assist in enforcing federal immigration law."
The move came days after Attorney General Tong and a group of attorneys general secured a permanent injunction from the District Court in Rhode Island, along with an opinion holding that the agencies violated the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by conditioning all federal funds from FEMA and DHS on states’ agreement to assist the federal government in enforcing federal immigration law.
It's worth remembering that there have been calls for the impeachment of "activist" Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. from the District Court Rhode Island due to his alleged abuse of power, and potential conflicts of interest.
“Once again, Donald Trump is playing politics with disaster relief. We’ve already sued and won once before on this, but he’s not done. Now he’s defunding certain states and imposing arbitrary and unworkable conditions on states like Connecticut. We’ll keep fighting and we’ll keep winning to stop Trump from hurting our states,” said Attorney General Tong.
On Saturday, FEMA issued the award notifications for its single largest grant program, the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), which allocates approximately $1 billion in funds annually for state and municipal efforts to prevent, prepare for and respond to acts of terrorism. FEMA granted only $226 million to the states filing today’s lawsuit. This was a $233 million, or 51%, reduction from the total amount that FEMA had previously stated it would provide to these states.
Some states saw even sharper cuts. For instance, Illinois received a 69% reduction in funds, totaling over $30 million. New York received a 79% reduction in funds, totaling over $100 million. DHS then redistributed the funds that it had cut to other states.
Smaller states like Connecticut receive a statutorily set minimum in FEMA funding. Connecticut’s funding remained flat at just over $8.7 million through the HSGP and the Emergency Management Performance grants in question.
However, FEMA imposed a series of new constraints on how and when states must spend their dollars, which Tong and the coalition are calling "arbitrary" including an additional requirement that funds be spent during a single fiscal year, as opposed to the previously set three years.
In their lawsuit, Attorney General Tong and the coalition argue that the reallocation and constraint of funds is unlawful and violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act. The attorneys general are seeking a temporary restraining order to block the reallocation.
The attorneys general of Illinois, New Jersey, California and Rhode Island led the coalition. Attorney General Tong and the attorneys general of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington joined them in filing the lawsuit.
Stay updated with the latest in the Constitution State with The CT Centinal
