An alliance made up of authorities from 24 states of the United States and the federal district of Columbia has presented a lawsuit this Thursday against the Administration of Donald Trump for having conditioned the delivery of billions of dollars in federal aid for emergencies and natural disasters on the states submitting their voter lists to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and collaborating with this agency on immigration matters.
The Attorney General of Rhode Island, Peter Neronha, who leads the group of 24 attorneys general along with the Democratic governors of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, and Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, has denounced in a statement that "Once again, the Trump Administration threatens to jeopardize public safety by illegally withholding billions of dollars in essential funds; and once again, they will not go unpunished."
In that same text, Neronha has reproached the White House for "using the safety of Americans as a bargaining chip by trying to coerce states into giving up their constitutional right to enact policies and laws that benefit their residents."
The attorney has also emphasized that "Congress allocated these funds to the states for emergency preparedness and response, including the fight against terrorism and natural disasters, and the executive branch has no legal authority in this matter."
In the same vein, he has warned that "Federal emergency funds cannot and will not be hostages of states that legitimately resist the President's illegal attempts to force them to comply. We will ensure that."
They denounce an attempt to force immigration cooperation
According to the lawsuit, the questioned conditions "would force states to modify their electoral procedures, including the transmission to the Department of Homeland Security of lists of all registered voters, and to collaborate with the latter in the enforcement of federal immigration law." "They would also allow the DHS to cancel any federal grant at any time and for any reason," adds the statement.
The plaintiffs argue that the Trump Administration seeks to impose requirements that "would force states to allocate their scarce police resources to assist DHS in the enforcement of federal immigration law." "These conditions were declared illegal and a district judge suspended them last year," the document recalls.
The challenged policy also incorporates a clause that would authorize the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to "withhold 20% of state funds for counter-terrorism if states do not modify their electoral legislation to align it with the political objectives of the Administration," criticize the authorities who have gone to court.
In particular, the document emphasizes that "attorneys general assert that these requirements would force states to abandon years of work and millions of dollars invested in their electoral systems, all to obtain unrelated funds that Congress had allocated for the prevention of terrorist attacks."
The changes required by DHS and FEMA to avoid the withholding of that one-fifth of the funding, the complainants explain, "would force states to switch to paper ballot systems, to conduct a mandatory manual audit of 5% of voting systems, to match voter data and ballots using a methodology that DHS has not revealed, and to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system of DHS to verify the citizenship of all election workers and all registered voters in state electoral databases."
Additionally, they point out that federal authorities intend to "add a condition that would allow FEMA to terminate any grant program for any reason." "This constant threat of termination undermines the stability and reliability of which these crucial programs depend for their effectiveness," they have warned.
The new requirements affect "billions of dollars in funds, including more than one billion dollars from the National Security Grant Program, which states use to support security measures and protect residents from terrorism, cyberattacks, and other crimes," denounces the coalition of attorneys general and the two involved governors.
In the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, in addition to the attorney general Neronha, of Rhode Island, along with the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
The governor of Pennsylvania, the Democrat Josh Shapiro, has confirmed that he will file a lawsuit "against the Trump Administration for withholding millions of dollars intended for public safety in order to take control of our elections."
In a message spread on social media, Shapiro has accused the former president of "Donald Trump is actively threatening the safety of our communities and depriving our law enforcement officers and emergency services of resources, in an attempt to take control of our electoral system."
The Democratic leader has added that "Withholding this funding would be dangerous under any circumstances, but doing so with the aim of controlling our elections is to sink even lower, even for Donald Trump," claiming that "the people of Pennsylvania deserve leaders who protect their safety and their right to vote."