Illinois Joins Multistate Lawsuit Against Trump Administration Over Disaster Funding Conditions

Illinois has joined more than two dozen other states in a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing federal officials are illegally forcing states to overhaul their election systems and assist immigration enforcement in exchange for billions of dollars in disaster and homeland security funding.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in Rhode Island, targets policies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. It claims the agencies attached conditions to funding that Congress already appropriated, and that those conditions have nothing to do with disaster response or homeland security.

Under the challenged rules, states would need to shift to paper-ballot voting systems, run manual audits of their voting equipment, reconcile voter rolls and verify the citizenship of every registered voter in the state before qualifying for full funding. States that don't comply could lose at least 20% of their share of the Homeland Security Grant Program, money that pays for cybersecurity protections and anti-terrorism measures. The policies would also let DHS cancel grants at any time, for any reason, according to the lawsuit.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, who filed the suit, said the administration is using public safety money as leverage.

"Once again, the Trump Administration is threatening to jeopardize public safety by unlawfully withholding billions in critical funding and once again, they won't get away with it," Neronha said. "This Administration is using the safety of Americans as collateral by attempting to bully the states into relinquishing their constitutional right to enact policies and laws that best serve their residents."

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another plaintiff, said the funding conditions amount to an attempt to reshape how states run their elections.

"The Trump Administration is holding critical funding for homeland security and disaster response hostage in their latest attempt to take over our elections and perpetuate baseless conspiracy theories," Shapiro said.

The states argue the conditions violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution, which limits the federal government's ability to coerce states through funding strings that Congress never authorized.

A FEMA spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit as "partisan pushback," saying the agency expects "these left-wing politicians to oppose common-sense measures designed to protect election security and safeguard the integrity of American democracy."

"Election security is national security, and protecting our critical infrastructure remains a top priority for the Trump Administration," the spokesperson said. "Concerns over voting processes, data security, and registration practices have made it clear that action is required."

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal fights between Democratic-led states and the administration over its practice of attaching policy demands to federal money. Similar tactics have hit education grants, domestic violence prevention funding and highway money. Courts have sided against the administration in several of those cases already.

Last year, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. blocked Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy from cutting off highway funds to states that refused to cooperate with immigration enforcement. In his ruling, McConnell wrote that 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."

A separate ruling barred the administration from imposing conditions on other FEMA funding, and another this year stopped DHS from redirecting money away from states it viewed as insufficiently supportive of its agenda. Thursday's lawsuit contends the administration is now trying to reimpose some of those same conditions for 2026 funding after failing to make them stick the year before.

The election-related demands trace back to Trump's unproven claims that mail voting led to widespread fraud in the 2020 election, claims that multiple audits and investigations, including some conducted by Republican officials, have found no evidence to support. Trump has also said he wants greater federal control over how elections are run in Democratic-led areas.

Illinois' involvement puts Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office in a fight that touches both election administration and disaster preparedness funding the state relies on for flooding, tornadoes and other emergencies. The lawsuit does not ask for a specific dollar figure in damages but seeks to block enforcement of the funding conditions while the case proceeds.

No hearing date had been set as of Thursday. Plaintiffs said they plan to file a request for a preliminary injunction within weeks, which would determine whether the funding conditions can be enforced while the underlying case moves through the courts.