A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s effort to make states assist federal immigration enforcement activities as a condition of receiving disaster aid, calling the policy “coercive,” “hopelessly vague” and “unlawfully ambiguous.”
The ruling ends a short-lived policy that could have stopped states from receiving billions of dollars in homeland security grants, including for disaster recovery, if they defied the immigration order.
Judge William Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled Wednesday in favor of Democratic state attorneys general who filed a lawsuit in May challenging the administration’s policy. Smith, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, imposed a permanent injunction blocking the policy.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha (D) said in a statement the ruling shows that the administration “may not illegally impose immigration conditions on congressionally allocated federal funding for emergency services like disaster relief and flood mitigation.”
