New York City filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday seeking to wrestle back more than $80 million previously sent to the city via the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house migrants. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0suit argues that the funds were previously approved and then paid out by FEMA, only to be removed from a\u00a0city\u00a0bank account on Feb. 11 without notice or administrative process.<\/p>\n
The funding had been revoked after Elon Musk claimed\u00a0that the Department of Government Efficiency found a $59 million FEMA payment to\u00a0New York City<\/a>\u00a0that was being used on luxury hotels to house illegal migrants. Trump later repeated Musk’s claim and argued that “massive fraud” was happening.<\/p>\n New York City was awarded two separate grants during the Biden administration \u2013 one for $58.6 million and another for $21.9 million \u2013 as the city attempted to pay to house migrants, many of whom were sent by Texas officials who were frustrated with the Biden administration’s handling of the influx of migrants entering the U.S. through the southern border.<\/p>\n NEW YORK CITY MAYOR ERIC ADAMS SAYS HE WILL RUN FOR RE-ELECTION AS A DEMOCRAT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n T<\/strong>he payments were made under the Shelter and Services Program (SPP) that Congress appropriated $650 million for last year to help local governments respond to the migrant crisis.\u00a0<\/strong>There are currently fewer than 45,000 migrants staying at taxpayer-funded shelters in New York City, up from a high of 69,000 more than a year ago.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of\u00a0New\u00a0York by\u00a0the city\u2019s\u00a0law department, which handles the city\u2019s legal affairs, against President Donald Trump, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n The lawsuit accuses the federal government of\u00a0violating federal regulations and the terms of the SSP grant, as well as abusing the federal government\u2019s authority and obligations to implement congressionally approved and funded programs. \u00ad<\/p>\n The suit argues that on Feb. 19, the federal government belatedly provided the\u00a0city\u00a0with a “noncompliance” letter\u00a0that did not identify any noncompliance by the\u00a0city.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Rather, it announced \u2018concerns,\u2019 which are unfounded and do not comport with how the\u00a0city\u00a0has managed the unprecedented crisis brought to its doorstep,” the law department said.<\/p>\n Citing the government\u2019s actions as a “money grab,” the law department said the letter was a “mere cover” to mask the federal government\u2019s real purpose, which is to permanently withhold the funds because it opposes their use on migrants.<\/p>\n The\u00a0city\u00a0is looking to recoup the funds and is seeking a motion for a preliminary and permanent injunction, and motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO).<\/p>\n New York City Mayor Eric Adams<\/a> defended and supported the lawsuit in a series of posts on X late Friday, writing that the $80 million was approved, paid for and then rescinded \u2013 all while the city\u00a0spent more than $7 billion of its own taxpayer money to tackle the crisis over the last three years.<\/p>\n JUSTICE DEPARTMENT MOVES TO DROP CASE AGAINST NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “We are going to work to ensure our\u00a0city\u2019s residents get every dollar they are owed,” Adams wrote in on post.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Without a doubt, our immigration system is broken, but the cost of managing an international humanitarian crisis should not overwhelmingly fall onto one\u00a0city\u00a0alone. We have skillfully shouldered the cost of this humanitarian crisis almost entirely on our own, with more than 231,000 people entering our\u00a0city\u00a0seeking shelter.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0New\u00a0York\u00a0City\u00a0Comptroller Brad Lander claimed the suit came about after he forced Adams\u2019 hand on the matter. Adams has come under fire from New York Democrats over his decision to be more cooperative with federal immigration agencies in apprehending criminal illegal migrants amid the Justice Department efforts to dismiss corruption charges against him.<\/p>\n “After my office discovered that Elon Musk<\/a> and his DOGE goon squad stole $80 million out of the\u00a0City\u2019s coffers, we successfully pressured Mayor Adams to allow the\u00a0City\u2019s lawyers to\u00a0sue\u00a0the federal government to get our money back,” Lander said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The lawyers who are standing up to President Trump and Eric Adams\u2019 collusion deserve praise and we look forward to Donald Trump returning the money he stole from\u00a0New\u00a0York.”<\/p>\n Lander is running against Adams in the mayoral election later this year.<\/p>\n READ THE LAWSUIT BELOW: APP USERS <\/strong>CLICK HERE<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Fox News\u2019 Landon Mion, Maria Paronich and Jennifer Johnson contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York City filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday seeking to wrestle back more than $80 million previously sent to the city via the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house migrants. \u00a0 The\u00a0suit argues that the funds were previously approved and then paid out by FEMA, only to be removed from a\u00a0city\u00a0bank … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}