- 5/13/2025
Democratic State Attorneys General announce a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over immigration policies and federal funding.
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00:30Hello, everyone. Good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Rob Bonta, California Attorney General here, and I want to say appreciate you joining us today as we announce the latest lawsuits that were co-leading against the Trump administration. And yes, you did hear that right. It's plural. We're announcing two lawsuits today.
00:55And before we dive in, I want to express my gratitude to the incredible Attorneys General that I get to call my partners in this important work. They're here with me today. I want to thank them for their dedication to upholding the rule of law, protecting rights and freedoms.
01:10Attorney General Kwame Raul from Illinois, Attorney General Matt Platkin from New Jersey, and Attorney General Peter Narona from Rhode Island. Thank you for your leadership, partnership, and this important work.
01:22And alongside 20 attorneys general, we're suing President Trump for unlawfully imposing immigration enforcement requirements on billions of dollars in annual U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants.
01:38These grants are largely unrelated to federal civil immigration enforcement. These are funds that the federal government has because of the taxes paid to it by states like California, a donor state, meaning this is our money and the money of other states that he's holding hostage for his own unlawful gain.
01:58Let's be clear. Let's be clear. The president doesn't have the authority to coerce state and local governments into using their resources for immigration enforcement.
02:09This is a blatantly illegal attempt to bully states into enacting Trump's inhumane and illogical immigration agenda.
02:19Once again, Trump's actions go beyond the scope of his presidential power.
02:23At this point, I'd recommend the president take a course on American civics to get a refresher on how checks and balances and the separation of powers work.
02:34This is yet another example of my office following through on our promise to take action if and when Trump violates the law and infringes on our rights.
02:43That's what we're doing today. It's what we've been doing over the last 16 weeks.
02:48Today marks 22 lawsuits against the administration because that's how many times he's violated the law and hurt our states.
02:55These lawsuits are about the Trump administration's unlawful actions to deprive the states of tens of billions of dollars of U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant funding.
03:07The president is attempting to condition the disbursement of these grants, money that's funded by taxpayers, by forcing states to enact his immigration enforcement agenda.
03:17These actions are unlawful and ignore Congress's decisions and Congress's power.
03:23Congress, of course, is a co-equal branch of government.
03:26Taking away these funds could harm California's ability to improve our roads, keep our planes in the air, prepare for emergencies, and protect against terrorist attacks.
03:37It undermines our ability to uphold the safety of our communities.
03:40President Trump can't use these funds as his bargaining chip, as his way of ensuring states abide by his preferred policies.
03:48That's not how a democracy works.
03:51Which is why we're asking the court to declare that the Trump administration's directive is unlawful and stop the administration from withholding the funds.
03:59The Trump administration is violating two basic principles that underlie the American system of checks and balances.
04:06First, agencies and the executive branch can't deviate from the authority granted by Congress.
04:13And second, the federal government can't use their spending power to coerce states into enacting its agenda.
04:21The bottom line is Trump's attempt to condition transportation and homeland security grants on immigration enforcement is illegal.
04:29Period. Full stop.
04:30And we will not let it happen.
04:32I've made it abundantly clear, I won't sit back while Trump violates the law.
04:36I'll see the Trump administration in court again.
04:40The attorneys general on this press conference have said the same thing, and we've done it time and time again when the law is broken and states are hurt.
04:48These may be the latest lawsuits, but we don't expect the president's barrage of unlawful, chaotic, and disruptive executive orders and actions to slow down, which means neither will our work ahead.
04:59Fortunately, I know we'll be able to weather the storm because of the dedication and tenacity of the folks on our respective teams across our various states.
05:07I want to shout out the folks at California DOJ who made today's actions possible, Christina Gutierrez, Alexis Piazza, Luke Friedman, Newton Knowles, Dalen Thrift-Viveros, Christopher Medeiros, Delbert Tran, Jim Stanley, Joel Marrero, Michael Newman, Danielle O'Bannon, Christina Bull-Arndt, and Jackie Gonzalez.
05:27We've got a great team, and I'm proud of them.
05:29Thank you, and please allow me to hand it off to my friend and colleague and partner, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raul.
05:36Thank you, E.G. Bonta.
05:39I'm proud to join my colleagues, Attorneys General Bonta, Platt, Kin, and Narona, as we file two of our latest lawsuits against the Trump administration.
05:50This time, the administration has acted unconstitutionally and in contravention to federal law by using two different federal agencies to impose immigration conditions that will put Americans at serious risk.
06:04The Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Noem and the Department of Transportation and Secretary Duffy are threatening to withhold billions of federal dollars, which are appropriated by Congress to support critical emergency services and infrastructure projects.
06:21Last year, Illinois received more than $122 million in federal funding from FEMA.
06:29Illinois also received more than $2 billion in Department of Transportation funding.
06:36This FEMA and transportation funding has nothing to do with immigration.
06:43However, it has everything to do with the safety of our residents after natural disasters and as they travel our roads, railways, and in the sky.
06:54At a time when the disaster relief and transportation needs of this country are significant, we deserve to know our federal agencies are focused on the welfare of all of us.
07:06Instead, the administration seeks to jeopardize readiness for disasters and safe roads, to try to force Illinois law enforcement officers to shift their focus away from addressing serious crime in our communities in order to instead do the federal government's job of civil immigration enforcement.
07:27These actions are illegal and unconstitutional.
07:29These actions are illegal and unconstitutional.
07:33They also make us less safe.
07:36These agency actions would damage the carefully built trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities, which is critical to promoting public safety.
07:47This would undermine public trust and cooperation in criminal investigations.
07:54It would likely have a chilling effect on witnesses and crime victims coming forward.
08:00We will not be forced to choose between partnerships with law enforcement that keep our streets safe and partnerships with federal agencies that help protect us from natural disasters and help keep our roads safe.
08:16Congress appropriated billions of federal dollars to help states prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters.
08:28Congress has never tied federal disaster preparedness and relief funds or critical transportation dollars to support for a particular ideological agenda.
08:39Nor should it.
08:41The need for safe roads and for life-saving responses to natural disasters like floods, tornadoes, and wildfires, they don't differentiate between red states and blue states or immigration ideology.
08:55And using these critical funds as a bargaining chip is dangerous and could cost American lives.
09:02I am proud of the continued collaboration between state attorneys general, and I'm more committed than ever to using all tools at our disposal to fight ongoing attempts to play politics with American lives.
09:18And at this point, I would like to introduce my friend, Attorney General Matt Placken.
09:23I want to thank Attorney General Bonta, Attorney General Raul, and Attorney General Narona, and all of my colleagues who are leading these lawsuits alongside us.
09:34I'm very proud, and the suits have been, I think, very appropriately addressed by Attorney General Bonta and Attorney General Raul.
09:44But I'm proud to lead these cases alongside them because, let me be clear, I'm the chief law enforcement officer in New Jersey, and my job principally is to keep the nine and a half million residents of our state safe.
09:57These conditions, unlawful and unconstitutional as they are, also make us less safe.
10:03There's no debate about that.
10:04I'm living it every day in New Jersey, where the policies of this administration are causing victims of violent crime and victims of domestic violence and victims of sexual violence, making them reluctant to come forward and share information with law enforcement, which is making New Jersey less safe.
10:23We've had, these are real cases, a domestic violence victim stabbed in the neck.
10:30ICE tried to deport her, not the assailant.
10:35None of us, and I'll speak for New Jersey, we have no sanctuary policy.
10:41I don't even know what that means.
10:42It has no meaning in law.
10:44We cooperate with ICE on violent criminals.
10:48What we don't do is use the 42,000 law enforcement officers of New Jersey to target people based on civil immigration enforcement proceedings that have no connection to law enforcement exercises in New Jersey.
11:03And what this administration is doing, as my colleagues have said, is conflating funding streams appropriated by Congress and using them to compel states like New Jersey and Illinois and California and Rhode Island to take actions that we have deemed not to be consistent with the best interests and the safety of our residents.
11:26Something we are given the power to decide under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
11:33And you think about the funding that's being threatened.
11:36Funding that protects us from terrorists and makes us prepared for terrorist attacks.
11:41Funding that prepares us and allows us to respond to natural disasters.
11:46Funding that makes sure our roads and bridges and yes, airways function.
11:51And if you've been paying any attention to New Jersey's airways lately, the administration hasn't exactly been hitting a home run on that score.
11:57So yanking more funding will not make planes land on time at an airport that this administration has utterly wrecked over the past couple of months.
12:06So they're not actually trying to make us safe.
12:10They're not actually trying to comply with the law.
12:12They're certainly not listening to the perspectives of law enforcement officers on the ground, by the way, during police week.
12:19What they're doing is waging a political crusade and using federal funding streams in ways that are unlawful to try to compel states to do what they have been unsuccessful in winning in political fights.
12:33And that is not what the Constitution allows.
12:36And it's not what the law allows.
12:38And that's why we have stepped up to ensure that we can best protect the residents of our state while delivering the critical services that the government is obligated to deliver.
12:48And I'll just finish with this. I live at the bottom of a hill.
12:51If you go up to the top of my hill, the hill in my town, you can go to Eagle Rock Reservation and see the 9-11 Memorial.
12:58Fifty seven people from our county in Essex County were killed on 9-11, about 750 from the state of New Jersey.
13:04And at the top of that hill, you have a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline, the Jersey communities leading up to Hudson River.
13:15And you can see straight ahead of you is where the Twin Towers stood.
13:19And if you pan to the right, you can see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
13:23We live in the shadow of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
13:28The Department of Homeland Security was created after 9-11 to ensure that we never again would have that kind of atrocity on American soil.
13:36The idea now that you are weaponizing those two ideas, a home of immigrants and the protection against terrorist attacks, is so profoundly unlawful and it's also un-American.
13:50And these lawsuits will ensure that we can continue to do our jobs, which is protecting our residents at a time when this administration is making them less safe.
14:00It's now my honor to turn the virtual mic over to my good friend and colleague, Attorney General Peter Naroda from Rhode Island.
14:11Please unmute your mic.
14:21Yep.
14:22I want to thank you, Matt, for handing the microphone to me and glad to join with my fellow attorneys general in bringing these actions in Rhode Island.
14:36These will be the six cases we brought here in Rhode Island.
14:40And along with Attorney General Raul and Attorney General Placken and Attorney General Bonta, we have together built the best and biggest law firm in the country.
14:49And we are fighting for all Americans every day.
14:52And as we stack wins, as we stack wins against the Trump administration's violations of the Constitution and other federal law, what we're seeing is a creeping authoritarianism in this country.
15:07The president is trying to take power to himself.
15:13He is attempting to sideline the Congress, which is why we brought these two cases and many others.
15:18And as we stack wins, he has attempted to undermine the judiciary.
15:24And when that happens, power rests in one place.
15:28And that's with the president.
15:29And that is not how our democracy was drawn up.
15:32And that is not how we will be able to function.
15:35And make no mistake, the conditions that the president has placed on funding from DHS and from DOT, everything from highways to aviation to emergency and disaster relief.
15:49Those conditions are designed to do one principle thing.
15:54And it's not to force states to cooperate with federal immigration work.
16:00What it's designed to do is to force states to take over federal civil immigration work.
16:06There is a big distinction between what the Trump administration is asking states to do and fighting violent crime, whether that involves people who are in the country unlawfully or not.
16:17As the DA in Rhode Island, effectively as attorney general, we don't have DAs here.
16:22I'm very familiar with the violent crime landscape here.
16:25And that is that we are responsible.
16:28We are responsible for prosecuting violent crime.
16:32We are the ones who are, we are the ones here in Rhode Island who are responsible for taking on violent crime in ways that the Trump administration has not done.
16:54And so what we are talking about, as I said, is the Trump administration forcing the states to do their civil immigration work.
17:05And we know they're forcing us to try to do that, forcing us to do that, because they're not capable of doing it by themselves.
17:12As a former United States attorney and as a former federal prosecutor, I know, I know how many ICE agents are in the state of Rhode Island, and it's under 10.
17:23And so what they need to carry out their agenda is for us to do the work for them.
17:29And to do that, state law enforcement will be pulled away from the important law enforcement work we need to do right here on behalf of Rhode Islanders.
17:39And the same is true across my fellow states in this country.
17:44And so when the president violates the Constitution in this way, we are going to bring action against him.
17:51When he violates the Constitution in this way and harms Rhode Islanders and makes us less safe, we're going to continue to bring actions against him.
18:01We are not afraid, this law firm, unlike some other law firms in this country, are not afraid of taking on the administration, and we will collectively continue to do that work together.
18:21If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by clicking on the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen.
18:26You will then be moved to the queue. Please wait to speak until I invite you to state your question and the outlet you represent.
18:33We will then unmute your mic. You may also use the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen to ask your question.
18:40Our first question comes from Steph. Steph, you are now unmuted.
18:47Hi, this is Steph Machado from the Boston Globe. Thanks for the information.
18:55I'm wondering if any states have actually received a cut of any particular grant from the federal government because of these immigration conditions, or are you essentially preemptively seeking to get a judge to block this before the DOT or FEMA cuts funding because of immigration cooperation?
19:16Maybe I'll jump in here. Thank you for the question.
19:23I do first also want to shout out and say thank you to Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown for his great work and leadership.
19:30As to the question, we have quite a bit of funding at stake here, $15 billion when it comes to the Department of Transportation, $20 billion when it comes to the Department of Homeland Security.
19:44We have sued because this injury is imminent, and the actions taken by the federal administration has made it clear that this funding would be withheld based on this unlawful condition.
19:56So, at this point...
19:58But they haven't yet, is my question. They haven't yet done so?
20:02It's imminent, but I don't believe any actual grants have been withheld, but we want to get a declaratory...
20:08We brought a declaratory action and are seeking injunctive relief before the harm can be visited because this is critical funding as we've described.
20:16Thank you so much. And could you just explain why it was filed in Rhode Island?
20:22We filed across the country in any court that is going to be fair and objective and consider our factual presentation and legal analysis.
20:31We feel very confident, and we have a great team led by Attorney General Nerona in Rhode Island, so we filed there for these two.
20:39I would just add, thanks to General Bonta, everything he said is accurate.
20:45Obviously, these are new conditions on new funding streams, but this is an administration that has shown they're going to act on funding cuts.
20:52Just a couple of weeks ago, I came back to my office one night to millions of dollars of law enforcement funding cut without any warning.
21:00Funds that prevent bias crimes, by the way, as they're investigating a bias crime, attacking Governor Shapiro's residents in my neighboring state, cutting law enforcement bias crime services, cutting violence, gun violence prevention work in a state that's had the lowest level of gun violence.
21:17So this administration has shown that they will cut funding seemingly on a whim that makes us less safe, that puts law enforcement officers out of work, and that makes our communities more dangerous.
21:29And so their promise to cut funding in the future if you don't accept unlawful and unconstitutional conditions as Attorney General Bonta is not a theoretical threat.
21:37It's something we are absolutely experiencing in our states.
21:40Yes, Stephan, I could just jump in here.
21:43We've seen already these conditions being relayed to state agencies like state highway officials.
21:52And so what's being asked is that the states, the state agencies, certify that they will cooperate in immigration enforcement efforts in a way that is extraordinarily vague,
22:04vague, but could well be interpreted and likely is interpreted as requiring state troopers here in Rhode Island, province police officers, for example, to take up civil immigration work.
22:16Not violent, not going against violent criminals who may include people who are in the country unlawfully, but doing civil immigration work.
22:26And we don't have the space or the bandwidth to do that and to do all of our other work.
22:32So the choice is really we really the states have had a gun put to their head for existing and future funding.
22:41You will cooperate as directed by the federal government, the Trump administration, or you will not get your funding.
22:49And the states are not in a position to make those certifications because we believe that they are not only vague and unlawful, lawful because they're vague, but they're unlawful for lots of other reasons, including separation of powers, reasons and others.
23:04And in terms of why the cases filed in Rhode Island, well, I'm grateful to be a co-lead on this team.
23:10But we have built a strong team here in Rhode Island that I believe has been a good partner to my fellow attorneys general.
23:17And we are working well together on these and many, many other cases.
23:21Proud to have built that team here in Rhode Island and proud to work alongside the great teams of my fellow attorneys general.
23:31You're welcome.
23:35Our next question comes from Nate.
23:38Nate, you're now unmuted.
23:40Yeah.
23:41Hi.
23:42I just had a question of, do you have any estimate of how much collectively the 20 states at issue receiving grants from DOT and DHS?
23:54Like in terms of collectively how much money is at stake here?
24:01I don't have an answer to that, unfortunately, but it's $35 billion in California alone.
24:10So there's certainly, you know, we're in the hundreds of billions across the 20 Democratic states.
24:16Don't know if others have any other thoughts on that question.
24:22Well, I would just say that what we're talking about here, to put it in context for reporters from Rhode Island and residents of Rhode Island, we're talking about tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars that will go to our bridges and highways.
24:39And anyone in Rhode Island understands how important that funding is.
24:43And so these are high stakes cases.
24:46They're important cases.
24:48I anticipate that we're going to win these cases as we have won the vast majority of our previous cases.
24:55But make no doubt, these are high stakes cases.
24:59And, you know, a gun has frankly been pointed at the heads of Rhode Islanders and the residents of our states.
25:06And that's why we felt we had to take action now.
25:08Yeah, it's it's billions in for New Jersey as well.
25:13And I just want to underscore again, we are at a crisis at Newark Airport.
25:18Absolute crisis.
25:20Equipment failures.
25:22Secretary Duffy went out and said that he is going to reduce air traffic in and out of Newark Airport canceling flights because he has no conceivable plan to fix it.
25:31And his solution, apparently, is to cut billions of funding from transportation to our state unless we agree to assist in deporting victims of domestic violence.
25:43That's what they're asking us to do, not violent criminals.
25:47They're asking us to help in the deportation of victims.
25:49That's a real case in New Jersey.
25:51And if we don't, which is our right under the 10th Amendment, they will continue to destroy one of the busiest airports in the world because that's the current crisis we are dealing with in New Jersey.
26:01So, you know, I wish the administration would stop playing politics with people's lives.
26:07I wish Secretary Duffy would do his damn job, which is to make sure planes land on time, not to direct immigration enforcement and stop going on Fox News so much and maybe go to work and get the planes running, because that is what the people of New Jersey expect.
26:25So I don't have an answer for the collective funding, but in Illinois, it's $2 billion for an annual highway funding, $60 million for counterterrorism work being done by local law enforcement, $24 million to protect non-for-profit organizations from violent extremists and millions of dollars for storm and flood relief.
26:54So these are funds that are life saving.
26:59It's life saving funding being threatened by this coercion based on ideological beliefs.
27:13Our next question comes from Matt.
27:15Matt, you are now unmuted.
27:24Hi, gentlemen.
27:25Thank you for your work on this issue.
27:27I'm talking to you from South Jersey, where any contractor who ever worked on a casino in Atlantic City can tell you how Trump handles his bills.
27:36He prefers to fight these things in the court and hoping that no one will be able to catch up with him in the long run.
27:42And it seems to be his political strategy here with some of these illegal actions that you're talking about at the federal level.
27:48Do you have a message for lay people who really want to know how is anyone pumping the brakes on some of this stuff?
27:55Because it seems to be this strategy of I'm going to do what I want and let people catch up and pick up the pieces afterwards.
28:01And then the damage has already been done by the time the courts catch up with him.
28:09I'll take a stab.
28:12First of all, your attorneys general, your Democrat attorneys general are stepping up and we've stepped up in multiple cases.
28:23You know, just yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts talked about the threat to the rule of law.
28:31And one of the things he said is that schools need to be re-upping on their civics education.
28:43Well, perhaps we need to start at the White House, because certainly the president, who has said in response to whether he should abide by the Constitution, that he's not a lawyer.
29:00There's not a I'm not a lawyer defense to abiding by our U.S. Constitution.
29:05We all take an oath. And this is yet another action by the federal government, by the administration that violates our Constitution.
29:16And so I think lay people, whether or not they're lawyers, need to remind our federal government that we have a Constitution that the president has taken an oath to abide by.
29:34I'll just add Mr. Trump thinks he's above the law.
29:40He's not. He thinks he can violate the Constitution. He can't.
29:43And he has, unfortunately, shown that he's a repeat offender when it comes to breaking the law and violating the Constitution.
29:52He's broken it 22 times in 16 weeks.
29:55And to your point about going to court that sometimes the final judgment in a case can take some time.
30:04But in our cases, we have gone into court sometimes in less than 24 hours from an unlawful action and secured an order stopping the unlawful action,
30:14sometimes within hours of filing a request for a restraining order.
30:18So the response is quick.
30:20And the success of this group of Democratic Attorneys General has been high.
30:25In most of our cases, we have secured orders stopping the unlawful conduct.
30:29So this idea that Trump can engage in the unlawful conduct and go to court to slow it down and continue the unlawful conduct is demonstrably untrue based on our cases.
30:41We have broadly stopped his unlawful conduct and will continue.
30:46And that's why we're bringing these two lawsuits today.
30:50Yeah, Matt, first of all, good to talk to somebody from South Jersey.
30:53And I know a lot of those same contractors in Atlantic City who can tell you those stories and they're real.
31:00But the number for New Jersey is 22 billion.
31:03There's 22 billion in funds that are flowing in my state right now that would not be flowing if it wasn't for our lawsuits.
31:09And I believe my colleagues could all say the same thing.
31:13And it's millions, if not billions more, if you count universities and other individuals who have been harmed here.
31:20So if you're a Medicaid recipient in New Jersey, you're still getting Medicaid because of our lawsuits.
31:25If you're if you're a parent of a kid in Head Start, you're still getting those services because of our lawsuit.
31:32If you're a parent of a kid with autism, those services are still falling because of our lawsuits.
31:36So our lawsuits have kept up.
31:39And as General Bonta said earlier, the two questions I think we all ask on every case is president violating the law.
31:46Is he hurting the residents of our states?
31:48We've answered those questions. Yes.
31:50Yes. On each of our lawsuits, which is why we have overwhelmingly won, not just won the suits, but one immediate relief, which protected our residents from devastating harm.
32:00And I'm confident that's what you'll see here again, because these harms would be devastating to our states, devastating to the residents who live here.
32:09Yeah. And look, I'll just add that, you know, you to see the difference that we're making, you just have to look at the states that haven't been part of our lawsuits.
32:17And home here in New England, you know, there are five states that have brought these actions in one state, New Hampshire, that hasn't when it comes to the unlawful funding freezes.
32:26And so in Rhode Island and the other four New England states other than New Hampshire, our NIH funding continues to flow.
32:35And all the other funding sources, our public health funding continues to flow.
32:39And so the attorney general and the governor of New Hampshire are having to answer questions by their from their residents as to why their money's not flowing.
32:47Their money's not flowing. Well, their money's not flowing because their attorney general didn't step up.
32:52Ours did. We collectively did across our 22 states and the District of Columbia.
32:59We have stepped up. And so we have won and the money continues to flow.
33:04That's the tangible difference between standing up and not standing up.
33:08In New Hampshire, the residents are not getting their public health and other money that they are entitled to,
33:14notwithstanding the Trump administration's unlawful conduct.
33:19And our states, our residents are getting it.
33:21That's the benefit of having attorneys general who have built the biggest and best law firm in this country that goes to court,
33:29gets wins, gets immediate wins on behalf of our residents.
33:33Can I ask one brief follow up question?
33:36Just whether you have any thoughts on how some of the weaponization of multidisciplinary federal agencies came to bear on what we saw with Raz Baraka last week,
33:48where you have the mayor of a major city in our state kind of pulled off of public land for a protest onto private property for the purposes of arresting him by men with their faces covered,
34:01who don't want to show their identity because he was there with a group of residents protesting the fact that they didn't want a federal detention center,
34:08much less one that had not applied for permits or been subject to any sort of local inspections.
34:14You know, Matt, I issued a statement on that. I could refer you to it.
34:18Obviously, the First Amendment is the First Amendment for a reason.
34:22People have protected rights to protest, protest in this country, especially a duly elected mayor of the largest city in my state who has been.
34:32And I think, you know, the video is quite clear, was there making his perspective known.
34:38I have deep concerns about what happened there. I don't have further comment on it other than to say the politicization of the United States Attorney's Office
34:47in states like New Jersey is having a real effect on law enforcement.
34:52It's hurting our residents. It's making it harder for us to do the work that we have done across administrations,
34:58Democratic administrations and Republican administrations for decades to coordinate effectively on how we keep our residents safe.
35:06That coordination, because of a decision not by me, by the federal government, has effectively been severed because they'd prefer to be out on Fox News and tweeting in ways that are wholly inappropriate about criminal cases.
35:21I think we lost Attorney General Plotkin. Any other questions?
35:36I can go to the next question. Our next question comes from Nancy. Nancy, you're now unmuted.
35:41Hi, Nancy Lavin with Rhode Island Current. I was just wondering if you could explain the choice to follow file two separate lawsuits against the two different agencies, rather than as you've done in many of these other complaints, you know, one lawsuit against a barrage of different agencies.
36:06I'll take maybe a first crack at that. Two separate agency actions, different statutes and authoritative statutes involved, and thus two actions.
36:22Always need to be specific in our response to the legal authority being relied on and the action being taken.
36:30So sometimes we can, for lack of a better word, aggregate some of our cases. Sometimes we have to be very specific in our surgical approach, and this is one of those times where, based on the actions and the legal authority that the departments were relying on, we felt it appropriate to bring to actions.
36:48All right.
36:52All right. I believe we have time for one more question. Our next question comes from Maria. Maria, you are now unmuted.
36:58Great. Thank you very much for having this. Maria Cicchetti with The Washington Post. I wanted to double check, please, when exactly would you start to lose the funding in each lawsuit?
37:10And then, separately, I wanted to ask if you could please explain what you do, just in broad strokes, you know, and don't do on immigration enforcement.
37:18I think there's an idea that sanctuary cities don't work with ICE at all. Is that always the case?
37:25Yeah.
37:28Hello?
37:31Well, I guess I'll take the last part of the question. And so, I'm sure I can speak for my colleagues. I can certainly speak, obviously, for Rhode Island.
37:43We work with the federal government all the time on immigration involving violent crime. It could be violent crime involving narcotics or firearms or both. And that's been true for decades. And that hasn't changed. None of that has changed.
37:59But what is changing or what the Trump administration would change is to commandeer our state and local law enforcement to do civil immigration work. You cannot do the kind of work that the president has touted targeting civil immigration, meaning people who are in the country unlawfully, but are not violating the law in other ways.
38:23So they are not dealing drugs or trafficking in guns. They are working, many of them paying taxes.
38:32And so we cooperate with the federal government in targeting violent criminals, including those who are in the country unlawfully all the time. And I've been on both sides of that as U.S. Attorney and now as Attorney General.
38:45But what they're asking for here, because they've only got less than 10 ICE agents in the state of Rhode Island, and there's only so many hours that they can take from FBI and DEA and ATF to supplement that, they want 300 state troopers to join them.
39:01They want 400 Providence police officers to join them. And that's not something that we feel that they can order us to do.
39:09And we also believe that that would have negative effects on our own ability to keep up with the crimes that are occurring here in the state of Rhode Island, and would also make our communities less safe by targeting civil immigration enforcement.
39:27We would discourage victims of crime to come forward to help solve crime or to allow us to prosecute successfully people who are driving violent criminal misconduct.
39:39Yeah, maybe I'll jump in here as well. We confirming on my side that there haven't been any actual cuts yet. But this imposition of this unlawful unconstitutional condition precedent before funding that Congress has already decided to flow can flow is an imminent injury to our states.
39:59Unless we commit to this unlawful demand, the money won't come. So money hasn't been cut yet, but it's imminent in terms of it being withheld for this unconstitutional reason, which is why we brought the lawsuit.
40:16I saw a question earlier asking if the lawsuits have been filed. Both have. You can see the complaints in the District of Rhode Island.
40:21And then to your question about what our states do for California, we have a statute, the California Values Act, which does provide for cooperation from law enforcement, including our state prison system, our state jail system, to engage in transfers for generally, and it's enumerated more specifically in the statute, but generally for serious violent sexual offenses, felonies, as well as some misdemeanors.
40:50All set out clearly in the statute itself. But we've made a very sound decision in terms of tackling crime in the state of California that are valuable and not unlimited law enforcement resources will be used to tackle crime, murders and rapes and robberies, and not used for civil immigration enforcement, except for the exceptions I just mentioned.
41:15And we think when there's a partnership between community and law enforcement, when victims are coming forward, when witnesses are coming forward, sharing information about crime with law enforcement, then our law enforcement are able to keep communities safe.
41:27And that's a decision we've made. And we are completely within our rights under the 10th Amendment to do so. And that has been upheld in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals here in California.
41:38So we there is cooperation on violent crime. But we will not be commandeered and conscripted and forced to do the job that there are whole departments and agencies at the federal government to do.
41:54And they they certainly can do their job, but they cannot force us to do their job for them. We will not interfere or obstruct.
42:01But it's we want to focus on crime, not on civil immigration enforcement.
42:04Yeah, I would just point out that the funding, the conditions on the funding are applying now.
42:12So the funding we're seeking now, they're seeking certification. So this is.
42:17Ongoing second, we to your second question, Maria, in New Jersey, we also cooperate with us.
42:24If you have been accused of a violent crime or you've been convicted of any indictable offense, which is anything other than a misdemeanor in New Jersey.
42:32Within the last five years, we cooperate on removal that that's been the case.
42:39This is this is not new. This has been around since 2018. It's been upheld in the federal courts.
42:44It's been upheld by an appointee of President Trump. In our case, these are not controversial legal positions.
42:51And as the police chief who I was with yesterday, who is in a who operates in a very diverse community, said if it wasn't full, but for the immigrant trust directive,
42:59we would never get witness information and victim information from the communities that I serve.
43:07This is somebody who's been a chief and in law enforcement for almost 40 years.
43:11So I have very little patience for people trying to tell us that this is somehow making us less safe at a time when we've had two years running the lowest number of shootings we've ever had in New Jersey,
43:25where I brought more human trafficking cases last year in one year, just from my office in the entire state for the previous four years combined.
43:31Auto thefts and burglaries are down more child sex abuse material cases, 70 percent increase in child sex abuse material cases.
43:39So, like, I really don't want to listen to the federal government lecturing me about how to keep our state safe.
43:44The 10th Amendment says I get to make those decisions. They can be a partner in that, which they've chosen not to be.
43:49I got cut off before. I don't think they like my answer on the Barack thing.
43:52But the point is, these funding conditions are affecting us now, and what we're talking about is settled law, not controversial, settled law.
44:06With regards to Illinois, over my six and a half years of serving as Attorney General, I've enjoyed tremendous partnerships with federal law enforcement partners from FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, and Homeland Security.
44:22And we have partnered on fighting crime, whether committed by citizens or non-citizens.
44:30We do have a trust act that, similar to California, allows for cooperation, whether there's a federal criminal warrant or some other federal law that would require such,
44:45but protects our law enforcement resources from being used, from being commandeered to do what the job of the federal government is, to enforce immigration.
44:59And it was the late Justice Scalia who held up that principle and said that the 10th Amendment does not allow for the commandeering of state and local government to do what is the job of federal government.
45:17Thank you, and that's all the time we have.
45:28Thank you, everyone.
45:29Thank you, colleagues.
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