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Press Release:

Emer­gency Law­suit to Pro­tect Crit­i­cal Home­land Secu­ri­ty Fund­ing from Polit­i­cal­ly Moti­vat­ed Cuts

Preceding Event:

On Jan. 20, 2025, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump signed Exec­u­tive Order 14159, declar­ing that cer­tain states and/or juris­dic­tions were in “law­less insur­rec­tion” and direct­ed the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) to deny fed­er­al fund­ing to so called “sanc­tu­ary juris­dic­tions.“
The U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Rhode Island ruled in a pre­vi­ous suit to per­ma­nent­ly enjoin DHS and FEMA from enforc­ing the con­di­tions they have set forth on the grants they admin­is­ter.

Accord­ing to the law­suit, “on Sat­ur­day, Sept. 27, the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency issued the award noti­fi­ca­tions for FEMA’s sin­gle largest grant program—the Home­land Secu­ri­ty Grant Pro­gram (‘HSGP’), which totals approx­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion in funds annu­al­ly for state and munic­i­pal efforts to ‘pre­vent, pre­pare for, pro­tect against, and respond to acts of ter­ror­ism’.”

How­ev­er, Plain­tiff states’ awards were were cut near­ly 50%, with some states see­ing cuts as high as 69% (Illi­nois) and 79% (New York), which totaled over $100 mil­lion in cut fund­ing. While these states had fund­ing cut, some states had their fund­ing increased, with some receiv­ing a 100% fund­ing increase.

This $233 mil­lion dol­lar real­lo­ca­tion was done with­out any expla­na­tion or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion aside from being direc­tives from HHS. The suit argues that plain­tiff states are being pun­ished because the admin­is­tra­tion sees them as being “sanc­tu­ary juris­dic­tions” and the admin­is­tra­tion wants to reward oth­er states that they see as com­ply­ing with their polit­i­cal aims in regards to immi­gra­tion enforce­ment.

General Overview:

Accord­ing to the release dat­ed Sept. 30, 2025, “Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong, as part of a coali­tion of 12 attor­neys gen­er­al, filed a law­suit to stop the Trump admin­is­tra­tion from unlaw­ful­ly real­lo­cat­ing and con­strain­ing fed­er­al home­land secu­ri­ty fund­ing from states based on their com­pli­ance with the administration’s polit­i­cal agen­da.”

Accord­ing to the law­suit, the real­lo­ca­tion is unlaw­ful because it vio­lates fed­er­al law, the Con­sti­tu­tion and pro­vid­ed no expla­na­tion for the changes.

Connecticut Nexus:

Accord­ing to the press release, “Small­er states like Con­necti­cut receive a statu­to­ri­ly set min­i­mum in FEMA fund­ing. Connecticut’s fund­ing remained flat at just over $8.7 mil­lion through the HSGP and the Emer­gency Man­age­ment Per­for­mance grants in ques­tion. How­ev­er, FEMA imposed a series of new arbi­trary con­straints on how and when states must spend their dol­lars. This includes a need­less addi­tion­al require­ment that funds be spent dur­ing a sin­gle fis­cal year, as opposed to the pre­vi­ous­ly set three years, effec­tive­ly defund­ing larg­er mul­ti­year projects and those that require longer state and fed­er­al review process­es.”

Date of filing:

Sept. 29, 2025

Case #:

1:25-cv-00495

Case title:

State of Illi­nois et al v. Noem et al

Plaintiffs: 11 states and D.C.

• STATE OF ILLINOIS;
• STATE OF CALIFORNIA;
• STATE OF NEW JERSEY;
• STATE OF RHODE ISLAND;
• STATE OF CONNECTICUT;
• STATE OF DELAWARE;
• DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA;
• COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS;
• STATE OF MINNESOTA;
• STATE OF NEW YORK;
• STATE OF VERMONT;
• STATE OF WASHINGTON

Defendants:

• KRISTI NOEM, in her offi­cial capac­i­ty as Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty;
• UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY;
• DAVID RICHARDSON, in his offi­cial capac­i­ty as Senior Offi­cial Per­form­ing the Duties of the Admin­is­tra­tor of the Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency;
• FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

Court:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND

Status as of Dec. 1, 2025:

OPEN
Last fil­ing: Nov. 28, 2025

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