Nearly all Democratic state attorneys general are suing the U.S. Department of Transportation for tying enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy to federal infrastructure funding.
On Tuesday, May 13, 20 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the DOT and Secretary Sean Duffy. The federal complaint challenges the department’s notice to withhold infrastructure funding if recipients do not fall in line with Trump administration policies, including immigration.
At the center of the lawsuit is Duffy’s April 24 letter to DOT infrastructure funding recipients informing them of the policy change. Democratic attorneys general argue the move violates the statutes that authorize the funding and constitutes an executive branch takeover of the power of the purse that is assigned to Congress.
According to the letter, the DOT will disburse infrastructure funding “only to those recipients who comply with their legal obligations.” Those obligations include complying with public policy requirements such as “protecting free speech and religious liberty and those prohibiting discrimination and enforcing controls on illegal immigration.”
Although U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in charge of enforcing federal immigration laws, it often requires cooperation and support from local and state agencies and officials. Several states with Democratic governors and attorneys general have indicated they do not intend to cooperate with Trump’s deportation policies.
Last November, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee told The Providence Journal in a statement that state police officers “are not immigration officers and will not expend any time and resources to support mass deportation efforts.” On May 8, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., told Fox News that the House holds the power of the purse and should “withhold funding from these sanctuary cities.”
Although Congress can withhold funding through statute, the DOT and Duffy cannot, the lawsuit argues.
“Secretary Duffy’s letter cites no governing statute or statutory provisions that authorize this new requirement. Nor could he,” the lawsuit states. “None of the U.S. DOT funding statutes contemplate any connection whatsoever between transportation funding and federal civil immigration enforcement. Nor do they require states to use their own resources to participate in immigration enforcement as a condition of receiving federal transportation funds.”
The main issue for the Democratic attorneys general is the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Congress can give the executive branch some authority through statute. But the attorneys general argue the executive branch has no inherent authority to rewrite statues Congress has written, including laws appropriating infrastructure funding.
States represented in the lawsuit claim losing federal funding will lead to a scaling back or termination of infrastructure projects, which could have a fatal outcome.
“The loss of this funding will cause state and local providers to scale back or even terminate many of these programs and projects,” the attorneys general state in the lawsuit. “More cars, planes and trains will crash, and more people will die as a result, if defendants cut off federal funding to plaintiff states.”
Conversely, the states argue they will be harmed if they do comply with the Trump administration’s immigration policy. Doing so would require the states to reallocate resources, including law enforcement, to federal immigration enforcement. Consequently, the states will incur “administrative costs and burdens by diverting limited personnel time and resources to federal immigration responsibilities that transportation personnel have no expertise in and have never had to handle before.”
In his letter to infrastructure funding recipients, Duffy connects immigration policy to transportation by claiming noncompliance of the former affects the safety and security of the latter.
“DOT has noted reported instances where some recipients of federal financial assistance have declined to cooperate with ICE investigations, have issued driver’s licenses to individuals present in the United States in violation of federal immigration law, or have otherwise acted in a manner that impedes federal law enforcement,” Duffy states in the letter. “Such actions undermine federal sovereignty in the enforcement of immigration law, compromise the safety and security of the transportation systems supported by DOT financial assistance and prioritize illegal aliens over the safety and welfare of the American people whose federal taxes fund DOT’s financial assistance programs.”
Most blue states are not buying that explanation.
“President Trump doesn’t have the authority to unlawfully coerce state and local governments into using their resources for federal immigration enforcement – and his latest attempt to bully them into doing so is blatantly illegal,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: The president is threatening to yank funds to improve our roads, keep our planes in the air, prepare for emergencies and protect against terrorist attacks if states do not fall in line with his demands. He’s treating these funds, which have nothing to do with immigration enforcement and everything to do with the safety of our communities, as a bargaining chip. But this is not a game.”
The lawsuit is being led by California and joined by Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Arizona and North Carolina are the only states with a Democratic attorney general who did not sign onto the lawsuit.
Democratic attorneys general in 16 states and the District of Columbia filed a similar lawsuit on May 7 that challenges the DOT’s withholding of electric vehicle charging infrastructure funding. Although the decision to pull back EV charging funding is not directly tied to non-transportation-related policies, attorneys general in that case argue the DOT has no authority to essentially revise statutes that allocate funding. LL
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