State sues Trump over police grants

Hopes to overturn federal rules that force “zero tolerance” immigration policies

“President Trump and Attorney General Sessions are assuming power they don’t have and literally putting lives at risk.”

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy

HARTFORD — Connecticut went to court Wednesday to overturn federal rules that force states to comply with “zero tolerance” immigration policies to receive routine law enforcement grants.

The legal action joins Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington in asking a U.S. District Court to block the Trump administration from withholding the money.

For Connecticut, over $1.7 million allocated to state and local police is at risk this year.

“President Trump and Attorney General Sessions are assuming power they don’t have and literally putting lives at risk,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said.

“Connecticut has taken a leadership role in standing up to this president’s repugnant immigration policies, including the cruel and heartless ‘zerotolerance’ family separation order,” Malloy said.

The conditions imposed by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions require that states provide federal immigration officials with advance notice of an immigrant’s scheduled release from a correctional facility. They allow agents access to prisons to question immigrants and force states to certify compliance with federal information-sharing law.

If any of those conditions are not met, the Justice Department is withholding grant money routinely distributed by past administrations.

The legal action follows a Bridgeport federal judge’s recent ruling that the separation of two children

now being detained in Connecticut was unconstitutional. The judge ordered that the children be reunited with their parents.

They were taken from their parents as part of Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy after the family illegally crossed the U.S. and Mexican border.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York argues that the administration demands interfere with the rights of states and localities to set their own law enforcement policies, and that the Justice Department lacks authority to impose conditions on states.

“These grants support vital local law enforcement initiatives and were designed to give states access to funds to support a broad variety of public safety needs,” Attorney General Jepsen said.

Malloy said the lawsuit marks another battle against Trump’s ‘unlawful”

immigration policies.

“Our state is once again at the forefront in fighting back against yet another unlawful, unconstitutional and unintelligible Trump administration directive,” Malloy said.

The suit notes that the Byrne JAG program provides grants to states and localities according to a mandatory statutory formula.

“Congress designed Byrne JAG to give states and localities a reliable source of law enforcement funding, while also giving them maximum flexibility to decide how to use the funds in accordance with state and local law-enforcement policy,” the suit contends.

In past years, the state passed much of the grant funding to state agencies and local jurisdictions to assist law enforcement and criminal justice programs, including the Statewide Narcotic Task Force and Connecticut’s opioid intervention project for local police departments.