There are legal complaints and there are legal complaints filed by 24 states and the District of Columbia simultaneously, which is the scale of coalition that forms when the federal agency responsible for disaster relief tells a quarter of the country that its federal funding depends on cooperating with the administration’s immigration enforcement and election policies, and the coalition of Democratic attorneys general filed that complaint Thursday.
The plaintiffs, confirmed by HuffPost’s live updates, include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and 10 additional states plus Washington, D.C., all of which are suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security for withholding FEMA funds and DHS grants as leverage to compel state cooperation with federal immigration agents and election integrity measures. “Congress never gave DHS or FEMA authority to rewrite state election law, require cooperation with federal immigration agents, or terminate federal funding streams at any time and for any reason,” the complaint states, which is the legal argument that FEMA is doing things Congress did not authorize it to do with money Congress did authorize it to spend.
FEMA’s response arrived promptly. A FEMA spokesperson told HuffPost the “partisan pushback” was “nothing new” and that “we fully expected these left-wing politicians to oppose common-sense measures designed to protect election security and safeguard the integrity of American democracy.” This is the statement of an agency that has characterized 24 states suing it as an expected partisan move, which is either supreme confidence or the specific response of an administration that has decided legal challenges are a category of political communication rather than a category of legal jeopardy.
The states in question include some of the most disaster-prone in the country. California has wildfires. Louisiana has hurricanes. Michigan has severe storms. All 24 are plaintiffs. All 24 are arguing that their disaster funding should not depend on their immigration enforcement posture.
FEMA called it partisan pushback. The states called it a lawsuit. Both are correct.
When 24 states sue the disaster relief agency for conditioning disaster funds on immigration cooperation, and the agency calls it partisan, what exactly is the relief conditional on?
Sources
HuffPost: Live Updates — 24 states sue FEMA and DHS
Raw Story: Trump administration ‘covertly’ denied FEMA relief money for blue states: judge
Raw Story: GOP senator rips Kristi Noem over FEMA disaster relief: ‘You’re violating the law’
