PROVIDENCE, R.I.: A coalition of 20 state Democratic attorneys general filed two federal lawsuits on Tuesday, claiming that the Trump administration is threatening to withhold billions of dollars in transportation and disaster-relief funds unless states agree to certain immigration enforcement actions.
\nAccording to the complaints, both Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have threatened to cut off funding to states that refuse to comply with President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration agenda.
\nWhile no federal funding is currently being withheld, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a news conference on Tuesday that the threat was \u201cimminent.\u201d
\n\u201cPresident Donald Trump can\u2019t use these funds as a bargaining chip as his way of ensuring states abide by his preferred policies,\u201d Bonta added.
\nDepartment of Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the lawsuit will not stop the Trump Administration from \u201crestoring the rule of law.\u201d
\n\u201cCities and states who break the law and prevent us from arresting criminal illegal aliens should not receive federal funding. The President has been clear on that,\u201d she said.
\nDuffy said in a statement that the 20 states have filed the lawsuit because \u201ctheir officials want to continue breaking federal law and putting the needs of illegal aliens above their own citizens.\u201d
\nBoth lawsuits say that the Trump administration is violating the US Constitution by trying to dictate federal spending when Congress has that power \u2014 not the executive branch.
\nOn April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs or risk losing funds.
\nNew Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin criticized the timing of Duffy\u2019s letter when Newark\u2019s airport struggles with radar outages and other issues.
\n\u201cI wish the administration would stop playing politics with people\u2019s lives,\u201d Platkin said. \u201cI wish Secretary Duffy would do his damn job, which is to make sure planes land on time, not to direct immigration enforcement.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, on Feb. 24, states received letters from the Department of Homeland Security declaring that states that \u201crefuse to cooperate with, refuse to share information with, or even actively obstruct federal immigration enforcement reject these ideals and the history we share in common as Americans.\u201d
\n\u201cIf any government entity chooses to thumb its nose at the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s national security and public safety mission, it should not receive a single dollar of the Department\u2019s money unless Congress has specifically required it,\u201d Noem wrote in her letter.
\nAttorneys general behind the lawsuits include the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.
\nThe cases are being spearheaded by California but were filed in federal court in Rhode Island, a detail that the attorneys general defended by saying they filed in \u201cany court that is going to be fair and objective and consider our factual presentation and legal analysis.\u201d
\nThe lawsuits are the latest legal actions that Democratic-led states have taken against Trump since he took office earlier this year. Bonta noted that California has filed more than 20 lawsuits against the administration, while Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said his state has launched more than a dozen.
\nWhile the lawsuits have challenged policies on tariffs, federal employee firings and health care research, Trump\u2019s focus on immigration enforcement and the mass deportation of immigrants in the United States illegally have received the most attention.
\nThis has included the president\u2019s promise to mass deport people and the start of a registry required for all those who are in the country illegally.
\n\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is a creeping authoritarianism,\u201d Neronha said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PROVIDENCE, R.I.: A coalition of 20 state Democratic attorneys general filed two federal lawsuits on Tuesday, claiming that the Trump administration is threatening to withhold billions of dollars in transportation and disaster-relief funds unless states agree to certain immigration enforcement actions. According to the complaints, both Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Transportation Secretary …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81001,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80982\/revisions\/81001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}