Attorney General Neronha, coalition successfully protect critical homeland security funding from unlawful cuts by Trump Administration
Published on Thursday, May 07, 2026
Attorney General Peter F. Neronha today announced the successful resolution of a lawsuit to stop the Trump Administration from unlawfully allocating federal homeland security funding based on states’ compliance with the administration’s political agenda.
In December, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted a motion for summary judgment brought by Attorney General Neronha and a coalition of 11 other attorneys general and the governor of Pennsylvania. The Trump Administration initially appealed the ruling, but dropped the appeal, ending the case.
“The President cannot withhold emergency funding from the states as a form of political punishment – he knows that, we know that,” said Attorney General Neronha. “Yet, this attempt by his Administration to divert hundreds of millions in homeland security funding away from blue states was shockingly and blatantly illegal – even for them. We succeeded in this lawsuit, as we have many times before, because we are consistently right on the law, while this Administration consistently shows contempt and disregard for it. Because in this country, we respect lawful policy differences, and we certainly don’t make emergency funding contingent on political obedience.”
On September 27, 2025, without any notice or explanation, and four days before the end of the federal fiscal year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) significantly cut funding to certain states that are unwilling to divert law enforcement resources away from core public safety services to assist in enforcing federal immigration law, while reallocating those funds to other states.
FEMA issued award notifications in September for its single largest grant program, the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), which allocates approximately $1 billion in funds annually for state and municipal efforts to prevent, prepare for and respond to acts of terrorism. FEMA granted only $250 million to the 12 states that joined the lawsuit. This was a $242 million, or 49%, reduction from the total amount that FEMA had previously stated it would provide to these states. FEMA then redistributed those funds to states the Administration deemed politically compliant.
The U.S. District Court ordered DHS to amend the HSGP awards issued to the plaintiff states to reflect the funding levels that DHS had previously stated it would allocate, before the last-minute changes. The court further held that other significant changes to emergency-preparedness programs, also made at the last minute at the end of the federal fiscal year, were unlawful and set them aside.
Joining Attorney General Neronha in filing the lawsuit were the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont and Washington, and the District of Columbia, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania.
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