N.J. AG joins 19 states in suing Trump over his threats to withhold federal funds
The Trump administration is demanding compliance with its immigration crackdown. Attorney General Matthew Platkin said $2 billion is at stake.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and 19 other attorneys general are suing President Donald Trump’s administration for threatening to withhold federal funding for states that do not join in his immigration enforcement policies.
Platkin, along with attorneys general from Rhode Island, California, and Illinois, announced during a Tuesday news conference that they and a coalition of attorneys general filed two lawsuits: one against Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and the other against the Department of Transportation and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The suits were filed Tuesday in Rhode Island.
The lawsuits were filed preemptively, said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, as the coalition anticipates Trump’s administration will hold back hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding unless the states take part in immigration enforcement actions.
In New Jersey alone, more than $2 billion in federal funding used for programs and projects such as disaster relief and airport construction is at stake, Platkin said.
Noem and Duffy have made it clear that state and local governments must assist in federal immigration enforcement as a condition of obtaining federal funds for critical projects, Platkin said in a statement.
New Jersey already cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on apprehending undocumented violent criminals, Platkin said, but Trump’s administration wants to compel state and local agencies to aid in enforcement that is not beneficial to the state’s residents.
“What we don’t do is use the 42,000 law enforcement officers of New Jersey to target people based on civil immigration enforcement proceedings that have no connection to law enforcement exercises in New Jersey,” Platkin said.
Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda is “unlawful” and “unconstitutional,” Platkin said, and making the Garden State less safe.
“The policies of this administration are causing victims of violent crime, victims of domestic violence, and victims of sexual violence, making them reluctant to come forward and share information with law enforcement, which is making New Jersey less safe. These are real cases,” he said.
Platkin also said cuts to federal funding would negatively affect air travel as Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest airports, contends with recent radar outages and staffing issues.
“We are at a crisis in Newark Airport. Absolute crisis,” Platkin said.
It’s not the first time that New Jersey has sued the Trump administration.
In January, Platkin joined 17 other attorneys general who sought to block Trump’s attempt to end automatic citizenship for the American-born children of undocumented immigrants. The action came less than 24 hours after Trump signed an executive order to eliminate what is called birthright citizenship.
That right, ingrained in the Constitution, holds that anyone born on U.S. soil is an American citizen.
“Presidents in this country have broad powers, but they are not kings,” Platkin said at a previous news conference. “They do not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the Constitution.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Thursday.
Attorneys general in Democratic-led states have fought Trump on a number of fronts, including their effort this month to stop mass firings at agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services.
States have sued over the president’s tariffs, saying they will raise prices and cost jobs. And last week, 15 state attorneys general sued Trump to block his actions around what he calls a national energy emergency, but what states say is an illegal effort to speed permitting for oil and gas development, Reuters reported.