By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation grant funding.
Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island granted the states’ request for an injunction barring the Department of Transportation’s policy, saying the states were likely to succeed on the merits of some or all of their claims.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a group of Democratic state attorneys general who argued the administration was seeking to unlawfully hold federal funds hostage to coerce them into adhering to Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.
The states argued U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy lacked the authority to impose immigration-enforcement conditions on funding that Congress appropriated to help states sustain roads, highways, bridges and other transportation projects.
Since returning to office on January 20, Trump has signed several executive orders that have called for cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that do not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as his administration has moved to conduct mass deportations.
Sanctuary jurisdictions generally have laws and policies that limit or prevent local law enforcement from assisting federal officers with civil immigration arrests.
The Justice Department has filed a series of lawsuits against such jurisdictions, including Illinois, New York and Colorado, challenging laws in those Democratic-led states that it says hinder federal immigration enforcement.
The lawsuit before McConnell, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, was filed after Duffy on April 24 notified states they could lose transportation funding if they do not cooperate with the enforcement of federal law, including with ICE in its efforts to enforce immigration law.
The states argue that policy is improper and amounts to an unconstitutionally ambiguous condition on the states’ ability to receive funding authorized by Congress as it leaves unclear what exactly would constitute adequate cooperation.
The administration has argued the policy was within Duffy’s discretion and that conditions should be upheld as there is nothing improper about requiring states to comply with federal law.
The 20 states are separately pursuing a similar case also in Rhode Island challenging new immigration enforcement conditions that the Homeland Security Department imposed on grant programs.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, additional reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi)
