There’s no reason why money for road repairs and flood protections should hinge upon states’ cooperation with federal immigration policies, contend 20 Democratic states attorneys general, including Dan Rayfield of Oregon.

That’s why the AGs are asking a federal judge to stop federal agencies from a “grant funding hostage scheme” that requires detaining undocumented immigrants who don’t commit crimes in order to receive key federal grants and aid.

Two new federal lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island Tuesday, May 14, against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Transportation aim to protect and preserve billions of federal dollars already awarded to states for emergency preparedness, disaster relief and infrastructure projects.

“This is another attempt to place conditions on money by holding hostage our safe roads and public safety,” Rayfield said in a statement.  “This is money Oregonians rely on for things like helping communities recover after wildfires, strengthening flood protection in places like Tillamook, and fixing roads and bridges.”

Directives issued in April by Homeland Security and the Transportation Department secretaries informed states that their federal funding required compliance with federal immigration policies. The AGs — representing Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont, along with Oregon — allege this violated constitutional protections for separation of powers.

“By hanging a halt in this critical funding over states like a sword of Damocles, defendants impose immense harm on states, forcing them to choose between readiness for disasters and emergencies, on the one hand, and their judgment about how best to investigate and prosecute crimes, on the other,” according to the lawsuit against Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and the U.S. Coast Guard, and their leaders.

“Defendants’ grant funding hostage scheme violates two key principles that underlie the American system of checks and balances: agencies in the Executive Branch cannot act contrary to the authority conferred on them by Congress, and the federal government cannot use the spending power to coerce states into adopting its preferred policies. Defendants have ignored both principles, claiming undelegated power to place their own conditions on dozens of grant programs that Congress created and bulldozing through the Constitution’s boundary between state and federal authority.”

The AGs say state and local public safety officials have more important work to do than cater to the whims of a new administration, which stand in contradiction to state-level directives such as, for example, authorizing licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Rhode Island lawmakers granted driving privileges for undocumented residents in 2022, with a July 1, 2023, effective date, joining 19 other states and the District of Columbia.

Federal protocols followed by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and other agencies could force state and local police to use state license laws as a way to find and detain undocumented immigrants.

“As a former U.S. attorney and former federal prosecutor, I know how many ICE agents are in Rhode Island and it’s under 10,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said during a virtual news conference Tuesday, May 14. “What they need in order to carry out their agenda is for us to do the work for them, pulling us away from important law enforcement work in Rhode Island.”

No state has seen federal funding cut off since directives were issued by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Not yet.

States’ abilities to respond to natural disasters and security threats, and complete key infrastructure projects hinge upon a continued flow of congressionally authorized federal grants and aid.

“If Plaintiff States reject defendants’ unlawful immigration enforcement condition, they will collectively lose billions in federal funding that is essential to sustain critical public safety and transportation programs, including highway development, airport safety projects, protections against train collisions, and programs to prevent injuries and deaths from traffic accidents,” the complaint states. “The loss of this funding will cause state and local providers to scale back or even terminate many of these programs and projects. More cars, planes and trains will crash, and more people will die as a result, if defendants cut off federal funding to plaintiff states.”

Similarly dire predictions accompany the loss of security and disaster funds, which includes $3 billion in FEMA money to states each year, according to the lawsuit against Homeland Security.

The new complaints reprise language of the 20 state AG lawsuits against the Trump administration that preceded them, calling the executive agencies’ actions “arbitrary and capricious” and in clear violation of constitutional separation of powers and spending clauses.

Neronha, the Rhode Island AG, pointed to the success that AGs have had in other lawsuits, temporarily preserving funding and policy protections for education, immigration, research funding, public health, and grants and aid to state governments, among others.

“As we stack wins against the Trump administration for violation of the Constitution and other federal laws, what we are seeing is a creeping authoritarianism in this country,” Neronha said. “The president is trying to take power for himself. He’s trying to sideline Congress, and now, he’s attempting to undermine the judiciary.”

Neronha likened the latest federal directives attempting to force states to redirect their own law enforcement to serve federal civil immigration policies to “holding a gun to states’ heads.”

The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday, May 14.

The lawsuit against the Transportation Department was assigned to U.S. District Chief Judge John Jr. McConnell Jr., while the case against Homeland Security was assigned to Senior District Judge William E. Smith, according to the public court docket.

This story originally appeared in the Rhode Island Current, which, like the Oregon Capital Chronicle, is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization. Find the Capital Chronicle story here.