Bonta Co-Leads States to Another Win: Court Rules DHS Immigration Conditions on FY 2026 Grants Violate Injunction, Orders New Award Letters
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced in Oakland on November 9 that a multistate coalition he co-led secured an order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island enforcing its prior judgment that blocked the Trump Administration's effort to impose immigration conditions on hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grants.
Last year, Bonta and the coalition secured a permanent injunction blocking the imposition of these conditions, an injunction which remains in effect. After DHS attempted to impose a new, nearly identical set of immigration conditions on the grants they administer for the 2026 fiscal year, the coalition filed a motion to enforce the judgment.
In its November 9 decision, the court determined that the immigration conditions imposed by DHS on fiscal year 2026 funding fall within the scope of the prior judgment, which applied to cover future fiscal years and 'materially similar' conditions. As such, the court declared that DHS's decision to implement the FY 2026 Immigration Conditions violated the 2025 injunction, enjoined DHS from enforcing the FY 2026 Immigration Conditions against the plaintiff states, and ordered DHS to reissue award letters without the challenged conditions.
'Court after court has rejected the Trump Administration's unlawful attempts to condition unrelated grant funding on supporting the President's hateful immigration agenda,' Bonta said. 'The safety of our communities is not a political bargaining chip. I applaud the court for swiftly reining in this latest attempt by the Trump Administration to circumvent court orders and Congress' power of the purse.'
California receives funding from DHS every year to prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks and other catastrophes, the Attorney General's office said. This includes counterterrorism grants, grants that allow states to prepare for terrorism in high-concentration urban areas, emergency preparedness grants, cybersecurity grants, and many others that are similarly not connected to civil immigration enforcement. State and local law enforcement already work closely with federal agencies on the counterterrorism measures that these grants fund.
Bonta was joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
(Source: California Department of Justice)
Source: California Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州总检察长办公室所在大楼（1300 I Street，Sacramento）。Coolcaesar 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons，GSM 加州固定图库。 / Photo: The building housing the California Attorney General's office at 1300 I Street in Sacramento. By Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, GSM California asset library.
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