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Attorney General Raúl Torrez Announces Court Order Protecting Billions in Federal Emergency Services Funding

• September 25, 2025

Albuquerque, NM – Attorney General Raúl Torrez, along with a coalition of 20 attorneys general, announced an important victory in the multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration over its attempt to illegally coerce states into sweeping immigration enforcement by threatening to withhold billions in federal funding – funding designated for emergency preparedness, preventing and addressing terrorist attacks, mass shootings, wildfires, floods, cybersecurity threats and more.

The District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted the motion for summary judgement in the lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In its opinion, the Court held that the agencies violated the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by putting conditions on all federal funds from FEMA and DHS based on states’ agreement to assist in enforcing federal immigration law.

“It is unconscionable that the Trump Administration would threaten to withhold emergency relief funds as a way to leverage states to participate in their reckless policy of indiscriminate immigration enforcement,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “We are pleased the Court has recognized that conditioning these funds on our state’s participation in this brutal and economically misguided policy is unlawful. Our citizens, like all Americans, are entitled to emergency relief from natural disasters without conditions.”

In February, the DHS was directed to cease federal funding to jurisdictions that do not assist the federal government in the enforcement of federal immigration law. In March, DHS amended the terms and conditions it places on all federal funds to require recipients to certify that they will assist in enforcing federal immigration law. These sweeping new conditions would require states and state agencies to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts or lose out on billions of federal dollars that states use to protect public safety.

In the decision, the court agreed that DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act in adding the conditions, including because:

• The agency failed to consider public safety in doing so
• The conditions are overly broad and ambiguous
• The conditions violate the Constitution’s Spending Clause The court rejected DHS’ argument that placing immigration-related conditions on the grant funding was appropriate simply because many of the grants are designed to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism. Instead, the court determined that DHS made no serious attempt to provide a fact-based reason for its action. In fact, the court found that the “vague and confusing language” used in the conditions made it nearly impossible for states to comply.

In filing the lawsuit, Attorney General Torrez and the coalition argued that the immigration conditions exceed DHS’s legal authority and violate the Constitution because the programs in question were established to help states prepare for, protect against, respond to and recover from catastrophic disasters, not for immigration-related purposes. The district court agreed, holding that imposing the condition on all DHS and FEMA programs, regardless of the purpose of those programs, was unlawful.

Opinion

The lawsuit, which was co-led by the attorneys general of California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, was also joined by the attorneys general from Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.

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