Attorney General Bonta Secures Emergency Order Halting Illegal Diversion of Homeland Security Funding

Funding is vital for California’s efforts to prevent, prepare for, protect against, and respond to acts of terrorism and other emergencies 

OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today secured a temporary restraining order blocking the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from reallocating vital homeland security funding away from California and other states — and toward states with policies with which the Trump Administration agrees. Yesterday, Attorney General Bonta and a coalition sued the Trump Administration after their states received award notifications over the weekend that were significantly lower than anticipated — without justification and seemingly based on their states’ decision to use their law enforcement resources to protect public safety rather than assist in federal immigration enforcement.

“Over and over, the courts have stopped the Trump Administration’s illegal efforts to tie unrelated grant funding to state policies,” said Attorney General Bonta. “It’s a little thing called state sovereignty, but given the President’s propensity to violate the Constitution, it’s unsurprising that he’s unfamiliar with it. California uses the grant funding at stake in our lawsuit to protect the safety of our communities from acts of terrorism and other disasters — meaning the stakes are quite literally life and death. This is not something to play politics with. I’m grateful to the court for seeing the urgency of this dangerous diversion of homeland security funding.”

On January 20, 2025, President Trump directed DHS to “ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions do not receive access to Federal funds” ignoring the fact that multiple courts have upheld laws like California’s SB 54 as constitutional and consistent with federal immigration law and firmly rebuking the Trump Administration’s attempts to condition federal funds on assistance with immigration enforcement. Just last week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a permanent injunction in California’s lawsuit blocking the Trump Administration’s effort to unlawfully impose immigration enforcement requirements on billions of dollars in annual DHS grants. Yet, DHS and FEMA remain undeterred from continuing to attempt to carry out the President’s directive. 

On Saturday, September 27, FEMA issued award notifications for its single largest grant program — the Homeland Security Grant Program. Consistent with federal law, FEMA had previously issued notices of funding opportunity preliminarily allocating the funding among state recipients based on each jurisdiction’s “relative threat, vulnerability, and consequences from acts of terrorism.” According to that notice, California could expect to receive approximately $165 million in grant funding. However, when California received the grant notification, the award was only $110 million, reflecting a 33% reduction. While California and the coalition are still gathering information, a defining factor of whether a state received an increase or decrease from anticipated funding appears to be whether a state was a so-called “sanctuary” jurisdiction or not. In short, the current Administration appears to be taking money from its perceived “enemies” and reallocating it to its “friends” — in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution.