On Tuesday, a federal district judge in Rhode Island blocked the Department of Homeland Security from conditioning funds on whether recipient states assist in federal immigration enforcement efforts. The order comes on the heels of two similar rulings filed in federal court in Rhode Island, which also blocked funding restrictions and cuts implemented by the DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — a DHS subagency.
The 21 states that brought the lawsuit, including Rhode Island, stood to lose a total of nearly $2 billion in disaster relief funds by not cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
The three-page ruling was handed down by U.S. District Judge William Smith, who is also a senior fellow in international and public affairs at Brown.
The ruling followed a previous 45-page judgment by Smith on Sept. 24, in which Smith held that the DHS may not condition its funding on states’ assistance in federal immigration enforcement. According to the Sept. 24 judgment, this condition had been added to all grants disbursed by the department.
Following the first ruling, the DHS issued nearly identical grant award documents that included the condition of assisting in federal immigration enforcement. But these new grants added a clause that the condition would only become effective if Smith’s earlier ruling was stayed or overturned.
On Tuesday, Smith shut down the department’s attempt to circumvent his earlier ruling, writing that the new document still required states to agree to the condition, which he called “unlawful.”
In the initial Sept. 24 ruling, Smith determined that the requirements imposed by the DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies create policies. He found the DHS’s condition “arbitrary and capricious” — a legal standard typically used to determine whether an agency’s decision has a rational connection to the facts and circumstances before it.
Given that the department is funded by congressional appropriations, Smith also found that the requirements violated the U.S. Constitution’s Spending Clause, which establishes congressional authority for federal spending programs.
In a statement sent to The Herald, R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha P’19 P’22 said that Smith’s second ruling “is just another example of the courts functioning in the way that they should in the face of blatant overreach by the executive branch.”
Neronha said that the DHS “tried to get creative and circumvent (the first) decision,” but that Smith “reiterated his order in no uncertain terms.”
In a separate Sept. 30 ruling also filed in a federal district court in Rhode Island, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy blocked an attempt by FEMA to cut more than half of the funding it was expected to disburse to several states through its Homeland Security Grant Program.
Affected states highlighted that FEMA did not specify a reason for the cuts, but noted that all targeted states had refused to assist in federal immigration enforcement efforts, according to a press release from Neronha’s office. Eleven states — including Rhode Island — and Washington, D.C. sued FEMA on Sept. 29 to recover the unissued funding, which totaled $233 million, alleging violations of the Spending Clause and the APA.
According to the press release, the R.I. Emergency Management Agency received over $7 million from FEMA, as was expected. However, the timeframe in which the state could use the funds was cut from three years to one, raising concerns about whether the state could spend the full amount in that window, Neronha’s release reads.
Other states saw significant reductions in funding: New York and Illinois received only 21% and 31% of their expected funds, respectively.
McElroy ordered the full funding amount to be made available, at least temporarily. Her ruling did not reference the shortened timeline for utilizing funds.
But some believe this is unlikely to be the final judgment on this issue. “We expect this case to work its way through the courts,” wrote Timothy Rondeau, a spokesperson for Neronha’s office, in an email to The Herald.
Rhode Island — along with New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts — has become a frequent site of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s actions. As of Oct. 1, Neronha has brought 37 cases against the federal government, according to the R.I. Attorney General’s website.
Although most federal trial judges across the four states were nominated by Democratic presidents, the two judges involved in these rulings were nominated by Republican presidents: Smith by former President George W. Bush in 2002, and McElroy by Trump in 2019.
The White House referred The Herald to FEMA for comment. FEMA and RIEMA did not respond to requests for comment.
Lev Kotler-Berkowitz is a senior staff writer covering city and state politics. He is from the Boston area and is a junior concentrating in Political Science and Economics. In his free time, Lev can be found playing baseball or running around with his dog.
