Trump Blocked From Linking Transportation Grants to Immigration

The US Department of Transportation was temporarily halted Thursday from conditioning federal funding for 20 states on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island determined that the states are likely to succeed on at least some of their claims that the Trump administration acted outside its authority in imposing the new requirements for obtaining federal transportation grants.

“The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding, are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers, are at risk of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, and will have to scale back, reconsider, or cancel ongoing transportation projects” absent an injunction, McConnell wrote.

McConnell said he was acting ahead of a Friday deadline that some applicants had to submit their grant applications.

The ruling from the Obama-appointed federal judge comes amid widespread protests over President Donald Trump‘s immigration agenda, including unrest in Los Angeles that led to a separate standoff between the president and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) over whether to send in the National Guard to keep order.

California led the lawsuit filed last month over the grant conditions, including an April letter from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy noting that cooperation with federal immigration law included ensuring that undocumented immigrants don’t get access to driver’s licenses. New York is leading a separate challenge filed the same day over similar conditions on Federal Emergency Management Agency funds.

States and private organizations have filed a host of legal challenges to abrupt federal funding changes, whether they were cuts aimed at cost savings or new conditions on grants such as ensuring that recipients follow Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion. For the most part, federal courts have halted those changes, at least temporarily, on constitutional and administrative law grounds.

McConnell said California and the other states are likely to succeed on their claim that the DOT funding conditions are outside the agency’s authority because Congress appropriated the funds for transportation, not immigration, purposes.

“Congress did not authorize or grant authority to the Secretary of Transportation to impose immigration enforcement conditions on federal dollars specifically appropriated for transportation purposes,” the judge wrote.

He also found the new conditions likely arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act and a violation of the US Constitution’s Spending Clause.

He also rejected the DOT’s arguments that the court lacked jurisdiction.

The California Attorney General’s Office represents the states. The US Department of Justice represents the DOT.

The case is California v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., D.R.I., No. 1:25-cv-00208, 6/19/25.