Federal judge blocks immigration condition on disaster aid from FEMA

A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled Wednesday that it is unconstitutional to require states to cooperate on immigration enforcement in order to receive disaster-relief funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The decision, granting summary judgment to a coalition of 20 Democratic state attorneys general, bars what the plaintiffs described as coercive conditions attached to federal disaster-aid programs.

U.S. District Judge William Smith found that the contested conditions are arbitrary and capricious and that they are coercive, ambiguous, and unrelated to the purpose of the federal grants. In his ruling, Smith wrote that the plaintiff states stand to suffer irreparable harm because the loss of emergency and disaster funds cannot be recovered later, and the downstream effects on disaster response and public safety are real and not compensable. The decision effectively enjoins the federal government from imposing immigration-related prerequisites on the grant programs at issue. The ruling emphasizes that FEMA’s disaster-relief funding should operate within the stated purposes of the grants rather than be conditioned on enforcement actions beyond what state law allows.

The lawsuit, filed in May, accused the Trump administration of threatening to withhold billions of dollars in FEMA disaster-relief funds unless states agreed to immigration enforcement steps. The coalition argued that such conditions, imposed on programs spanning earthquake and flood mitigation, wildfire management, and other emergency-response activities, exceed the federal government’s grant purposes and threaten long-standing funding commitments upon which states rely to prepare for and respond to disasters.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, a leading figure in the suit, cited the judge’s injunction as a victory for the rule of law. He said the ruling makes clear that the administration cannot illegally tie congressionally allocated emergency funding to immigration enforcement actions that exceed state authority. “Today’s permanent injunction by Judge Smith says, in no uncertain terms, that this Administration may not illegally impose immigration conditions on congressionally allocated federal funding for emergency services like disaster relief and flood mitigation. Case closed,” Neronha said in a statement.

The plaintiffs contended that FEMA’s grant conditions—present in 18 disaster programs but partially withdrawn for 12 of them—were designed to coerce states into devoting scarce resources to federal civil-immigration enforcement tasks beyond what state law requires. They argued this violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations, because DHS did not provide a reasoned explanation for why the conditions were necessary, failed to consider reliance interests of the states, and departed from longstanding funding practices without adequate justification.

The federal government argued that the challenge was moot for many programs since it had already decided to exclude 12 of the 18 from having to comply with the immigration requirements. For the remaining programs, the government contended that the matter was a contract dispute that should be resolved in the Court of Federal Claims rather than through an APA challenge. It also contended that Congress intended FEMA grant programs to address national security and terrorism concerns that rely on the cooperation the conditions promote, and that the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits for those remaining programs.

The decision arrives amid a broader national debate over whether federal disaster aid should be connected to other policy goals, and it underscores judicial scrutiny of federal grant conditions tied to enforcement actions. Advocates for the ruling argued that linking disaster funding to immigration enforcement risks hampering state preparation and response capacities in the face of natural disasters by diverting resources away from core emergency-management duties. Opponents of the ruling, meanwhile, cautioned that limiting the federal government’s ability to condition funds could reduce leverage to address national-security concerns.

Experts noted that the case may influence future FEMA practices and potentially invite more legal challenges to other grant restrictions that accompany federal funding. The administration could appeal the decision, and possible actions in related lawsuits could shape how conditions tied to grants are drafted and defended in court going forward. In the near term, the ruling provides a defined limit on how federal funds tied to disaster relief can be conditioned on immigration enforcement commitments that state officials argue go beyond their legal authority or the intended use of disaster funds.

Overall, the decision reinforces the premise that emergency-management funding should be anchored in relief, recovery, and resilience objectives rather than used as leverage for unrelated policy enforcement. As FEMA and state authorities continue to navigate post-disaster funding and planning, the ruling may serve as precedent for future challenges to conditionality in federal aid programs.