NJ joins lawsuit against Trump over federal grant rules

Attorney General Jennifer Davenport says the administration is using critical law enforcement grants to pressure states over immigration enforcement.

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and a coalition of attorneys general have accused the Trump administration of withholding millions in federal grant money to states that refuse to cooperate with what they called the president’s extreme immigration demands.

The attorneys general say in the amended lawsuit filed Aug. 21 in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island that the Trump administration attached four specific “Immigration Enforcement Conditions” to the grants, most of which were awarded in July.

Two of the conditions involve federal immigration agents’ access to detainees. Local authorities must tell the Department of Homeland Security when a detainee is released if the agency requested that information, and they must not block DHS agents from interrogating inmates about their immigration status.

The other conditions prohibit authorities from disclosing federal law enforcement information in a way that could be seen as shielding a fugitive and from restricting state and local employees or agencies from exchanging immigration status information with federal agents.

In the complaint, Davenport, who is co-leading the multistate coalition, called the conditions “arbitrary and capricious” and said they violate both the Administrative Procedure Act and the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The attorney general added that the federal cash helps protect law enforcement officers, support juvenile justice programs, fund victim services, pay for crisis intervention services, and fight crime.

“This is an outrageous maneuver that uses our dedicated law enforcement personnel as pawns in a political game,” Davenport said in a statement. “This administration is holding up funding that helps pay for protective equipment for law enforcement, fight drug trafficking, enforce Megan’s Law, and find violent criminals.”

“We will not let this administration attach illegal conditions to essential federal funding — funding that New Jerseyans send to Washington, D.C., through our tax dollars,” she said.

The attorneys general also wrote in the 80-page lawsuit that the administration’s “brazen attempt” to halt the payments and strong-arm states into supporting Trump’s immigration policies “runs headlong into two basic principles of American governance: separation of powers and federalism.”

“A federal agency has ‘no power to act … unless and until Congress confers power upon it,’” the attorneys general wrote in the suit, citing case law from 1986. “That is particularly so when it comes to federal funding, where Congress retains the power of the purse, and thus establishes the criteria that executive branch agencies like [U.S. Department of Justice] must use when awarding grants.”

The new conditions would force the states into a precarious position: either forfeit their right to critical resources or let the federal government “conscript state and local officials to enforce federal civil immigration law,” which the attorneys general said would undermine trust between local police and immigrant communities.

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general wrote that civil immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, not a state government responsibility.

The attorneys general are asking the court to block the administration from enforcing the conditions and bar the federal government from punishing states that do not comply.

The DOJ did not respond to a Friday request for comment.

Among the programs affected by the DOJ’s decision is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, otherwise known as the Byrne JAG Program.

Named for a rookie New York City police officer who was ambushed and murdered in his patrol car while guarding a drug case witness in 1988, the program has become the leading federal source of criminal justice funding to local and state governments. The program gave law enforcement agencies in New Jersey more than $21 million between 2019 and 2024.

The Trump administration tried a similar move last year when it declared that states would not be allowed to access Victims of Crime Act funds unless they agreed to the president’s immigration policies.

The same multistate coalition took the federal government to court over the declaration, forcing the DOJ to change course and admit the conditions did not apply to more than $1.3 billion in VOCA funds.