Federal Judge…Trump Can’t Withold Homeland Security Grants from Democratic States

The judge…

A Trump appointee has ruled that up front politics isn’t way the system is supposed to work for Americans…

Trump HAS sworn on a Bible to ‘Protect’ All Americans…

 

A federal judge blocked Trump administration efforts to reallocate Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism and security grants away from states that won’t cooperate on the president’s immigrationenforcement policies.

Why it matters: New York’s attorney general called the Trump-appointed judge’s ruling that was scathing of the administration a “significant win” for N.Y. and the 10 other Democratic-run states and D.C., which brought the lawsuit.

• The grants were from the Homeland Security Grant Program, which provides states and local governments with “critical resources to plan for and prevent natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and other emergencies,” N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

Context: A George W. Bush-appointed judge in September struck downa Trump administration policy of withholding funding from states unwilling to cooperate with ICE, after D.C. and 20 states sued the DHS and FEMA.

• D.C. and the 11 states filed a fresh lawsuit that month, saying the DHS had indicated it was reallocating hundreds of millions of dollars of anticipated awards to “sanctuary jurisdictions” elsewhere.
• Others to join the suit U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ruled on Tuesday are the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Driving the news: McElroy wrote in her ruling, which the DHS has indicated it will appeal, that the case marked “another example” of the administration tying federal grant funding to state and local government assistance with federal immigration enforcement….

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• To “hold hostage funding” for programs that are designed to protect Americans “based solely on what appear to be Defendants’ political whims is unconscionable and, at least here, unlawful,” McElroy added….

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