Attorney General Bonta Co-Leads Lawsuit Challenging Trump Administration’s Renewed Effort to Impose Unlawful Conditions on Billions in Critical Emergency Grants

OAKLAND - Co-leading a coalition of 24 attorneys general and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, California Attorney General Rob Bonta today filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration for imposing unlawful conditions on billions of dollars in federal grants that help States and local governments prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters. Specifically, the Administration is requiring States to adopt its preferred policies to receive these grants, including complying with new immigration enforcement mandates, accepting new election administration requirements, and allowing funding to be terminated based on vague and subjective criteria. The grants are administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Attorney General Bonta and other attorneys general have previously challenged and blocked two similar attempts involving these same grant programs. In today's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the coalition argues that DHS and FEMA's latest grant conditions are, once again, unlawful and unconstitutional.

"President Trump has little support for both his mass deportation agenda and his baseless claims of election fraud, so instead, he's trying to bully state and local governments into adopting his preferred policies in exchange for much-needed funding," said Attorney General Rob Bonta. "The Administration has already lost similar fights in court, and we expect this latest unlawful attempt to fail as well. Our communities deserve better than to have essential resources caught up in political games."

"Time after time, courts have told Trump's corrupt administration that it can't coerce California into doing its bidding by threatening to withhold public safety funding," said Governor Gavin Newsom. "Yet, they're coming back for more. This time they're demanding states rewrite their own election laws to access money that pays for public safety readiness and response, and that Congress already approved. We simply won't allow it."

The grants at issue include the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), which Congress established in direct response to the horrific events of September 11, 2001, to help States and local governments prevent, prepare for, protect against, and respond to acts of terrorism. California and its cities receive $150 million in HSGP funding each year for these purposes. Other FEMA-administered grant programs are also impacted, such as the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, which helps States pay for emergency management staff who prepare for and respond to natural disasters, mass casualty events, and other disasters.

The coalition alleges that the Administration is attempting to impose a series of sweeping new requirements on States, including:

• Election administration requirements: The Administration is seeking to force States to adopt its preferred election policies as a condition of receiving HSGP funds, including verifying voter citizenship through an error-prone federal system, transitioning to hand-marked paper ballots, and conducting ballot reconciliation using an undefined federal methodology. States that do not comply could lose 20% of their HSGP awards.
• Immigration enforcement requirements: The Administration is attempting to condition FEMA grants on States' assistance with federal civil immigration enforcement, although the courts previously blocked these same conditions.
• Broad FEMA termination authority: The Administration is seeking to give FEMA broad authority to cut off funding at any time based on vague and subjective "agency priorities," creating uncertainty over emergency management resources Congress provided to support States and local communities.

The coalition argues that the requirements are unlawful because Congress never gave DHS or FEMA authority to impose sweeping conditions on these federal grants, the agencies failed to follow required decision-making procedures, and the requirements violate the Spending Clause by coercing States through vague and ambiguous funding conditions that are entirely unrelated to the purposes of the funding programs.

Attorney General Bonta co-led two similar and successful lawsuits in 2025, each in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, challenging DHS's efforts to condition billions in federal emergency funding on states' agreement to enforce federal immigration law and DHS's subsequent attempt to unlawfully reallocate federal homeland security funding away from jurisdictions it viewed as insufficiently supportive of President Trump's political agenda.

Attorney General Bonta is co-leading today's lawsuit alongside Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, and Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. They were joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.