Illinois seeks to prevent feds from tying funding for states to
immigration enforcement
[May 14, 2025]
By Ben Szalinski
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and 19 other Democratic attorneys
general filed a pair of lawsuits Tuesday against Trump administration
policies designed to block federal funding to states that don’t carry
out U.S. immigration enforcement.
According to the lawsuits, recently enacted policies at the U.S.
departments of Homeland Security and Transportation illegally tie grant
funding for items such as natural disaster recovery and road
construction to whether the state participates in federal immigration
enforcement. The attorneys general say the goal of the policies is to
illegally force states to carry out federal immigration
responsibilities.
“This FEMA and transportation funding has nothing to do with
immigration,” Raoul said during a news conference. “However, it has
everything to do with the safety of our residents after natural
disasters and as they travel our roads, railways and in the sky.”
Under the 2017 TRUST Act signed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner,
Illinois law enforcement is prohibited from arresting and, in most
cases, detaining a person based solely on their immigration status or
assisting immigration officials. State law does not protect people in
Illinois from deportation, and federal officers can still make arrests
and deport people in Illinois.
The federal policy is illegal, according to the attorneys general,
because Congress controls spending and executive branch agencies cannot
withhold appropriations allocated by Congress. Furthermore, they argue
the states cannot be coerced into enforcing federal immigration laws.
President Donald Trump has signed executive orders designed to cut off
federal funding to “sanctuary” states like Illinois. The U.S. Department
of Justice also sued Illinois in February over the TRUST Act.
“The administration seeks to jeopardize readiness for disasters and safe
roads to try to force Illinois law enforcement officers to shift their
focus away from addressing serious crime in our communities in order to
instead do the federal government’s job of civil immigration
enforcement,” Raoul said.
Billions of dollars of federal funding could be at risk for Illinois,
Raoul said. This includes $122 million Illinois received last year for
disaster recovery, $2 billion for highways, $60 million for
counterterrorism, and $24 million to protect nonprofits from attacks by
extremists.
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Attorney General Kwame Raoul listens to debate in the Illinois House
in May 2023. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
“At a time when the disaster relief and transportation needs of this
country are significant, we deserve to know our federal agencies are
focused on the welfare of all of us,” Raoul said.
The lawsuits come a week after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem visited
Illinois to criticize the state’s “sanctuary” policies.
“This governor has bragged about Illinois being a firewall against
President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, and it is very clear
that he is violating the constitution of the United States because it is
a federal law that the federal government set and enforce immigration
policies,” Noem said.
Raoul also argued the federal government has never before allocated
funding based on whether a state agrees with the president’s political
agenda.
No states have lost funding so far as a result of these policies, but
it’s “imminent,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. He did not
say why the lawsuits were filed in Rhode Island federal court, which is
where Democratic attorneys general have filed many other lawsuits
against the Trump administration.
Raoul has seen some success in the more than a dozen lawsuits against
the Trump administration his office is involved in. A federal judge in
New York last week issued a preliminary injunction blocking a U.S.
Department of Education effort to cut off some federal funding to
states, giving Illinois access to $77 million.
Illinois has also joined other lawsuits to prevent the Department of
Education from being dismantled, ensure the state continues to have
access to various types of federal funding, and prevent the federal
government from limiting birthright citizenship among others.
The cases appear to be straining his offices’ resources, however, as
Raoul is asking state lawmakers to increase funding for his office by
$15 million this year to hire more attorneys.
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by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
