States Sue Trump Administration Over Disaster Aid Tied to Election, Immigration Demands

More than two dozen states have launched a legal challenge against the Trump administration, accusing it of unlawfully tying billions in federal disaster relief to compliance with controversial election and immigration demands.

The lawsuit, filed in Rhode Island, targets policies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It alleges the administration is compelling states to alter their election systems and assist DHS with immigration enforcement. Furthermore, the conditions would grant DHS the power to revoke grants without cause at any point.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha condemned the move, stating, "Once again, the Trump Administration is threatening to jeopardize public safety by unlawfully withholding billions in critical funding and once again, they won’t get away with it." He added, "This Administration is using the safety of Americans as collateral by attempting to bully the states into relinquishing their constitutional right to enact policies and laws that best serve their residents."

The states contend that imposing such conditions on congressionally approved funding contravenes both the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution’s spending clause. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit is one of scores that have challenged the Trump administration over its repeated effort to browbeat mostly Democrat states into complying with its priorities to get billions of dollars in federal funding. The strategy has been used on everything from education funding to domestic violence grants to highway funding.

The courts have repeatedly found this strategy to be unlawful and unconstitutional. A ruling last year barred the administration from putting conditions on other FEMA funding and a second ruling this year blocked the administration from redirecting DHS funding away from states not seen as supportive to the its agenda.

“The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding, are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers, are at risk of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, and will have to scale back, reconsider, or cancel ongoing transportation projects,” U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. wrote last year, when he barred the Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy from cutting off transportation funds to states that did not comply with immigration enforcement actions.

The latest lawsuit argues the administration is attempting to apply some of the same conditions on 2026 funding, as it failed to do with funding last year.

Among the requirements being challenged in Thursday's lawsuit is that states change their elections systems. They must transition to paper-ballot systems, conduct a manual audit of voting systems, reconcile voters and verify the citizenship of every registered voter in the state’s voter databases.

If states fail to comply, they risk losing at least 20% of their Homeland Security Grant Program funding. That money is used to fund measures to protect citizens from cyberattacks and terrorism.

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.