A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from diverting $233 million in homeland security funds away from California and several other states. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island, a Trump appointee, issued the temporary restraining order.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state faced a one-third cut — from about $165 million to $110 million.
“Arbitrary cuts put lives at risk, no other way to say it,” Bonta said during a Monday virtual press conference. “They undermine law enforcement, our emergency responders and public safety planning. And California won’t stand by while critical resources are redirected for political reasons.”
The lawsuit, joined by the District of Columbia and 11 states including Washington, Massachusetts and New York, argues the cuts violate federal law by basing funding on immigration politics — particularly sanctuary policies — rather than the risk-based criteria Congress established.
All of them have been designated a “sanctuary jurisdiction” by the U.S. Department of Justice in the past, but Delaware, which is part of the lawsuit, was removed from that list earlier this year. States with sanctuary policies limit cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities.
Bonta said California relies on the federal funds to prepare for terrorism, natural disasters and other emergencies.
“These cuts violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution by unfairly treating states like California differently based on policies Congress never intended to be a factor,” he added.
Rose Cuison Villazor, a law professor at Rutgers Law School and director of the Center for Immigrant Justice, agrees with Bonta. She said the act requires any rule changes — including around funding — to go through a process that gives either the public or states an opportunity to offer feedback.
“Under the [Administrative Procedure Act], it would be considered arbitrary and capricious because the process for making those changes was not followed,” she said. “[States] found out about the change or the reduction in the support on a Saturday morning, and with no real explanation as to what was happening.”
Villazor noted that courts have repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s attempts to use the “power of the purse” to punish sanctuary states. She added that withholding funds this way would also violate the Constitution’s spending clause.
“Under the spending clause, they cannot use the support that’s given by the federal government to states as a way to essentially conscript them,” she stressed. “If the conditions are coercive with the goal essentially to force states to comply with these enforcement mechanisms by the federal government, then under the law those would be considered in violation of the spending clause.”
Shiu-Ming Cheer, deputy director of immigrant and racial justice for the California Immigrant Policy Center, said the cuts were clearly political.
“It clearly shows that the Trump administration is more concerned about trying to enact its mass deportation agenda than actually assisting states like California from recovering from disasters and major catastrophes, which should be something that’s actually in our national interest,” she said.
Cheer called the move part of a broader pattern of federal overreach, saying, “We’ve seen other threats — like deploying federal troops or the National Guard to different locations.” To her, this is just “another bullying tactic to pressure states to comply.”
She added that withholding funds contradicts the administration’s own rhetoric that these states are crime-ridden, implying a need for more funds.
“The federal government claims that it’s trying to support states in a particular way, but actually taking steps that make it more challenging for states to address the issues of their constituents and communities,” she continued.
Cheer said her organization and others are working to compile a list of successful court cases that have found sanctuary states and cities are well within their power to pass those policies. They’re also engaging with residents to explain that while these laws do restrict the use of state and local resources to enforce immigration law, they do not bar federal agents from operating in California.
