The facts
On October 7, 2026, the plaintiff states filed "PLAINTIFF STATES’ SECOND MOTION TO ENFORCE" (Document 83) in Case 1:25-cv-00206-WES-PAS in the District of Rhode Island, asking the court to enforce its orders against the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Last year, DHS and FEMA imposed conditions on fiscal year 2025 grants that required states to assist DHS in enforcing federal immigration law. On September 24, 2025, the court held that DHS and FEMA "acted arbitrarily and capriciously and had violated the Spending Clause" in imposing them. On October 14, 2025, the court permanently enjoined DHS and FEMA from imposing the relevant conditions or "any materially similar term requiring cooperation with federal immigration enforcement," in the future. The defendants appealed, but "voluntarily dismissed their appeal on September 16, 2026," so the orders remain in full effect.
The motion says DHS and FEMA have now ignored that injunction and imposed immigration-cooperation conditions, many identical to the fiscal year 2025 ones, on nine fiscal year 2026 grant programs. These conditions "once again place nearly $1 billion in counterterrorism and emergency management funds at risk in the Plaintiff States". The states call it "deliberate disregard for this Court’s judgment and enforcement order" and ask for prompt relief.
The 2026 conditions include a term entitled "Communication and Cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Officials" with seven specific conditions, plus an eighth Fusion Center Condition requiring states to "maintain a permanent, formal seat for officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations" and to provide "[c]onfirmation that the lead agency for the fusion center is an active 287(g) partner."
The plaintiff states "collectively have been awarded over $900 million in fiscal year 2026 funding pursuant to these programs." After the states asked whether FEMA intended to enforce the new conditions on their grants, "FEMA has repeatedly declined to communicate any exception from the FY 2026 Immigration Conditions with respect to this Court’s orders."
Our take
Let's be fucking clear about what happened here. A federal judge looked at DHS and FEMA last year and said: what you did was illegal, arbitrary, and capricious. You violated the fucking Constitution. Do not do this shit again. Ever. He made it permanent. He told them not to impose those conditions or any 'materially similar' bullshit. And then, like the arrogant, contemptuous pricks they are, they waited for the ink to dry, dropped their own appeal to make it look like they gave a shit, and then immediately did it again. They are not just breaking the law; they are spitting on the court's order and using a billion dollars of emergency money as the fucking napkin.
The sheer, ballsack-swinging gall is in the details. They didn't even have the decency to be creative. The motion says many of the new conditions for 2026 are identical to the ones the judge already told them to burn. It's like a kid who gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, gets sent to his room, and then comes back downstairs and starts eating cookies directly in front of you while maintaining eye contact. The 'deliberate disregard' the states cite isn't a mistake; it's a fucking policy. FEMA's strategy is apparently to just hope everyone gets tired of suing them.
Then there's the fusion center demand, which is where the bureaucratic mask slips and you see the grinning authoritarian underneath. They want states to keep a permanent, formal seat at their intelligence hubs for ICE's deportation goons. Not just a chair - they need 'confirmation' the lead agency is an 'active 287(g) partner,' a program that turns local cops into federal immigration enforcers. So your center for tracking terror threats is now mandated to be a fucking ICE satellite office. They are weaponizing counterterrorism grants to build a national immigration police force, one coerced state at a time. It's a grotesque perversion of the money's purpose, and they are holding nearly a billion dollars hostage to make it happen.
After the states won, after the injunction, after FEMA pretended to surrender by dropping its appeal, the agency's response to a simple question says everything. The states asked: are you going to enforce these illegal conditions on our grants? FEMA's reply was silence. They 'repeatedly declined to communicate any exception.' That's not bureaucratic confusion; that's a silent, smug 'try and stop us.' They are daring the court to do something about it, betting that the process is slower than their ability to shove this shit down everyone's throat. This 'Second Motion to Enforce' should be retitled 'For Fuck's Sake, Make Them Listen.' At this rate, the plaintiff states should just automate the filing. Set a calendar alert: 'October. FEMA broke the law again. Attach last year's motion. Change the date.' The only thing more predictable than a natural disaster is FEMA's fucking contempt for the rule of law.
