Trump holds state terror funds hostage over voter rolls and immigration

Maryland is part of a 26-state coalition suing the Trump administration over conditions attached to federal counterterrorism funding — conditions that would require states to change how they run elections and help enforce federal immigration law.

What’s Happening: The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, targets the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security over conditions placed on billions of dollars in grants that states use to prepare for terrorist attacks, cyberattacks, and natural disasters. Maryland receives millions of dollars each year from the Homeland Security Grant Program for state and local counterterrorism efforts.

What’s Important: The Trump administration is threatening to withhold 20% of each state’s counterterrorism funding unless states overhaul their election systems. The required changes include switching to paper ballots, conducting mandatory audits, and verifying voter citizenship through a federal database that the lawsuit says has an error rate of up to 10%. States would also have to hand over their full voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security.

The immigration piece: The lawsuit also challenges a separate condition requiring states to use law enforcement resources to help enforce federal immigration law. A federal judge blocked a similar condition last year after the administration tried to attach it to emergency services and transportation funding.

The termination clause: A third condition would allow the agency to cancel any grant at any time, for any reason. A federal court recently rejected a similar attempt by the administration to claim that authority under existing rules.

How This Affects Real People: The Homeland Security Grant Program funds the security measures Maryland communities rely on to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. If the state refuses the conditions and loses the funding, those programs face cuts. If the state accepts them, it would have to redirect law enforcement resources and restructure its election systems.

Attorney General Anthony Brown joined the suit alongside attorneys general from 23 other states and the District of Columbia, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The coalition argues the conditions violate federal administrative law and the Constitution’s limits on how Congress can attach strings to money it sends to states.