It feels like this country is so divided?! The Trump administration will link funding to immigration enforcement, facing a joint lawsuit from 20 states.
Led by Democrats, 20 states filed two lawsuits on Tuesday, attempting to stop the Trump administration from coercing states to comply with immigration enforcement, or else face the withholding of billions of dollars in transportation, counter-terrorism, and emergency preparedness grants. In the complaints filed in federal court in Rhode Island, these states point out that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security are illegally using federal funds to coerce states into complying with Trump’s hardline immigration policies. California’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the lawsuit, condemned Trump for threatening states with “blatantly illegal” methods—if they do not utilize local resources to support immigration enforcement, federal funds for road improvements and emergency preparedness will be canceled. “He is using these funds, which are unrelated to immigration enforcement but are crucial for community safety, as political leverage,” Bonta stated in a press release. The states accuse the federal government of unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power over fiscal expenditures by attaching immigration enforcement conditions to grants. $ETH
