Overview

• U.S. District Judge William E. Smith found DHS reinserted contested immigration-enforcement terms into FEMA grant awards with a clause activating them if his injunction were stayed or overturned.
• He wrote that the tactic was not a good-faith effort to comply and described it as a ham-handed attempt to bully states into promises they are not obligated to make.
• The court blocked the new terms from being enforced and directed the administration to amend the grant documents by next week to remove the conditions.
• Smith reaffirmed that plaintiff states may accept FEMA and DHS awards without agreeing to the immigration-related requirements.
• The dispute follows Smith’s September decision striking down the policy under the Administrative Procedure Act, after a 20-state coalition argued the conditions threatened funding for disaster response, cybersecurity, and public safety.