Judge invokes 9/11 to order Trump to restore $33.8 million in anti-terrorism funds for New York subway
A federal judge in New York on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to provide tens of millions of dollars to the MTA to protect it against terrorist attacks, funding it had been denied. based on the city’s sanctuary protections for undocumented immigrants.
Manhattan federal judge Lewis Kaplan issued a final ruling on the issue in a 28-page order that began with a solemn reference to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“On September 11, 2001, just blocks from this courthouse, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in a devastating terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center. In the decades since, New York City has remained a prime target for terrorist attacks,” Kaplan wrote. “Among the city’s primary targets are its bridges, tunnels, and subway and commuter rail systems. Since then, the subways alone have been the subject of at least eight terrorist plots.”
State Attorney General Tish James’ office has asked the courts to require FEMA, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, to grant New York $33.8 million for anti-terrorism protection through its transportation security grant program and not awarding it to other less risky applicants, after learning that the Trump administration would cut funding on September 30, the day before the new federal fiscal year.
FEMA cut funding because New York City’s sanctuary protections for undocumented immigrants do not match the Trump administration’s tough immigration policies. The decision was not based on the likelihood that the city would face another terrorist attack, as Congress intended.
“Here, Congress did not authorize the Secretary of DHS to set immigration-related conditions for the disbursement of TSGP funds. Rather, Congress prohibited DHS from imposing such conditions by requiring that the selection of grant recipients be ‘based solely on risk,'” Kaplan wrote Thursday.
Lawyers for the federal government had argued that the money in question had expired by the time the attorney general’s office sought court intervention and had already been fully owed to other recipients, that there was no evidence that the decision to withhold the funds was arbitrary and capricious, or that the cuts would cause irreparable harm.
Since the creation of the TSG program in the years following the September 11 terrorist attacksThe MTA receives millions of dollars each year to protect its transportation infrastructure against terrorist attacks, including through technologies capable of detecting weapons of mass destruction.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch last week called the decision “profound errorShe said the money also funded canine units trained to detect explosive, chemical or radiological threats in subway stations and tunnels, the employment of undercover agents and heavy weapons teams, and the implementation of large-scale surveillance systems. Gov. Hochul said the Trump administration, supposedly focused on law and order, was “defunding the police.”
Spokespeople for James’ office and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This developing story will be updated.
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