The Trump administration racked up yet one more lawsuit this week because of the Metropolis of New York. It’s the most recent fallout from the shitshow debacle involving migrants housed on the Roosevelt Resort in midtown Manhattan beneath FEMA’s Shelter and Service Applications.
On February 10, Elon Musk “found that FEMA despatched $59M LAST WEEK to luxurious motels in New York Metropolis to accommodate unlawful migrants.” The appearing director of FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, thanked the DOGE Dauphin for the new tip, acknowledged that the cash had been appropriated by Congress to accommodate migrants — though the $156/evening charges paid by the Metropolis might hardly be referred to as “luxurious” — and promised to place an finish to it. Then Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem bigfooted in to say that she had “clawed again the total cost that FEMA deep state activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant motels.”
Which she had, after which some! The truth is, Noem reversed all the $80,481,861.42 cost made on February 4 to reimburse New York Metropolis beneath FEMA’s Shelter and Providers Program. Below the SSP, Congress allotted $650 million for DHS to reimburse native governments that present shelter and different providers to non-citizens launched into the group.
The Trump administration has been on a bender canceling grants and refusing to disburse congressionally allotted funds. However this time they went one higher and stole the cash again after it had already been paid.
Conscious that they’re beneath a number of courtroom orders barring them from doing precisely this, DHS raced to back-formulate a justification. They first filed an emergency movement to Decide John McConnell in Rhode Island, supported by a declaration from Hamilton, during which they pointed to imprecise media stories in regards to the lodge and requested for the courtroom’s permission to finish the grant. They failed to say that they’d already grabbed the money on the time of submitting. However the decide refused to play ball, noting that, if what they had been doing was actually authorized, they didn’t want his permission.
Every week later, DHS set about attempting to retcon a justification for the money seize. On February 18, they despatched a “Noncompliance Letter” to town, referring to “media stories” of gang exercise on the Roosevelt Resort and expressing “concern” that “entities receiving cost beneath this program could also be responsible of encouraging or inducing an alien to come back to, enter, or reside in the US in violation of legislation.”
Because the Metropolis factors out in its grievance, it’s a very weird allegation relating to a program particularly designed to accommodate migrants processed by DHS and launched with identification paperwork pending evaluate. It’s additionally not how any of this goes.
In grabbing again funds that had been used for the needs Congress meant and that had been reviewed, analyzed and decide allowable by FEMA, with out offering discover or a chance to be heard, Defendants thumb their nostril completely on the most elementary necessities for company motion beneath the Administrative Process Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. (“APA”). The motion should be put aside as illegal as a result of it was plainly arbitrary and capricious and opposite to legislation, in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Additional, it was in extra of Defendants’ statutory authority and extremely vires. It was completed with out complying with any of the procedures set out within the governing grant rules and phrases and circumstances. Id. §§ 706(A), (B), (C). Defendants grabbed again SSP funds that had been used for his or her meant functions as a result of Defendants wished to thwart the Congressional function of this system. In doing so, Defendants violated the Separation of Powers of the US Structure. And, by imposing new, retroactive grant circumstances, Defendants violated the Spending Clause.
In brief, the entire thing is a gobsmackingly unlawful try and steal congressionally-allocated funds in response to Musk’s outraged tweet. Notably, the defendants embody “U.S. Division or Company of Unknown Identification” and “JOHN OR JANE DOE, in his or her official capability as head of U.S. Division orAgency of Unknown Identification” — a transparent reference to the DOJ’s steadfast refusal to say who’s in control of DOGE, whilst Musk spends all day vomiting orders to authorities staff on his social media web site.
And so New York is now asking Decide Jennifer Rearden for a TRO after which everlasting injunctive reduction ordering the federal government to return the $80 million and barring it from stealing any more money from the Metropolis’s financial institution accounts.
Oral argument is ready for subsequent Wednesday, March 5. Perhaps by then the federal government will determine who’s in cost right here.
Metropolis of New York v. Trump [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she produces the Regulation and Chaos substack and podcast.
