WA, other states win lawsuit to protect homeland security funding from politically motivated cuts

Attorney General Nick Brown and a coalition of other attorneys general won their lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from unlawfully reallocating federal homeland security funding away from states based on their compliance with the administration's political agenda.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island on Monday granted a motion for summary judgment brought by Brown and a coalition of 11 other attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania.

"Protecting Americans from acts of terrorism should not be political," Brown said. "Sadly, this administration has no problem putting people's safety at risk in order to punish states that don't embrace his political agenda."

On Sept. 27, without any notice or explanation, and four days before the end of the federal fiscal year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) significantly cut funding to certain states that are unwilling to divert law enforcement resources away from core public safety services to assist in enforcing federal immigration law, while reallocating those funds to other states.

FEMA issued award notifications for its single largest grant program, the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), which allocates approximately $1 billion in funds annually for state and municipal efforts to prevent, prepare for, and respond to acts of terrorism. FEMA granted only $250 million to the 12 states that joined Washington in the lawsuit. This was an almost 50% reduction from the total amount that FEMA had previously stated it would provide to these states. Washington's expected allocation was abruptly reduced by $2 million. DHS then redistributed those funds to other states.

In her opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy found that states' policies pertaining to federal immigration enforcement were a factor in DHS' decision to reallocate the funding.

"Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this result," McElroy wrote of the reductions in funding. "Nor could any reasonable, data-driven approach have resulted in the obviously manual increases in awards to favored jurisdictions."

The court ordered DHS to amend the HSGP awards issued to the plaintiff states to reflect the funding levels that DHS had previously stated it would allocate before the last-minute changes.

The court further held that other significant changes to emergency-preparedness programs, also made at the last minute at the end of the federal fiscal year, were unlawful and set them aside. DHS had cut the length of the grant awards from three years to one year. To receive the funding, DHS had also required states to certify their own populations as of Sept. 30, 2025, while excluding individuals who had been "removed from the State pursuant to the immigration laws of the United States." The court held that these actions were also arbitrary and capricious.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha co-led the lawsuit. Joining them and AG Brown in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and the governor of Pennsylvania.

A copy of the order granting summary judgment is available here.

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