Minnesota part of legal victory involving immigration enforcement

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison late last week announced a victory in a multistate lawsuit he and a coalition of other attorneys general filed against the Trump administration over its attempt to illegally coerce states into sweeping immigration enforcement by threatening to withhold billions in federal funding for emergency preparedness and preventing and addressing terrorist attacks, mass shootings, wildfires, floods, cybersecurity threats and more.

U.S. District Court in Rhode Island granted a motion for summary judgment that Ellison and 20 attorneys general requested in their May 13 lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The court held that the agencies violated the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act by conditioning all federal funds from FEMA and DHS on states’ agreement to assist in enforcing federal immigration law.

In the decision, the court agreed that DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act in adding the conditions, including because the agency failed to consider public safety in doing so and because the conditions are overly broad and ambiguous. The court further found that the conditions violate the Constitution’s Spending Clause.