New York City sued the Trump administration Friday, demanding the return of some $80 million in federal disaster relief funding that was unceremoniously taken back earlier this month in what City Hall called a “money grab.”
The funds in question were provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in an agreement made during the Biden administration to help the city recoup its own expenses for providing care to tens of thousands of migrants who began arriving in the Big Apple in 2022. But on Feb. 11, FEMA — now under new management — abruptly removed a little more than $80 million right from a city bank account without any prior notice or warning.
City Hall says that move violated “federal regulations and terms of the Shelter and Service Program grant terms” and marked an abuse of “the federal government’s authority and obligations to implement congressionally approved and funded programs.”
“Without a doubt, our immigration system is broken, but the cost of managing an international humanitarian crisis should not overwhelmingly fall onto one city alone,” Mayor Eric Adams said late on Friday in announcing the lawsuit. “The $80 million that FEMA approved, paid, and then rescinded — after the city spent more than $7 billion in the last three years — is the bare minimum our taxpayers deserve. And that’s why we’re going to work to ensure our city’s residents get every dollar they are owed.”
The lawsuit contends that the Trump administration moved to take back the funding as a “money grab” because “they oppose the purposes for which the funds were appropriated, awarded, approved and paid.” City Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant said the lawsuit aims to not only get the $80 million back but also ensure the federal government never again makes such a seizure.
Along with Trump, others named as defendants in the case include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. FEMA is under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security.
City Hall filed the lawsuit in the federal court of the Southern District of New York. It came more than a week after City Comptroller Brad Lander, the city’s financial watchdog, demanded that the city’s Law Department take legal action against the Trump administration for the seizure.
While Mayor Adams did not mention by name President Trump or Elon Musk (the billionaire head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” [DOGE] who has been executing cuts throughout the federal government) in announcing the lawsuit Friday, Lander called them out in his own statement while praising lawyers “who are standing up to” alleged collusion between Trump and Mayor Adams.
“After my office discovered that Elon Musk and his DOGE goon squad stole $80 million out of the city’s coffers, we successfully pressured Mayor Adams to allow the City’s lawyers to sue the federal government to get our money back,” said Lander, who is challenging Adams in the 2025 mayoral primary. “The lawyers who are standing up to President Trump and Eric Adams’ collusion deserve praise, and we look forward to Donald Trump returning the money he stole from New York.”
The lawsuit came hours after a federal judge canceled Mayor Adams’ impending criminal trial on campaign fraud charges, which the Trump Justice Department seeks to have dismissed. Judge Dale Ho, however, appointed independent counsel to make arguments against dismissing the indictment before rendering a final decision in the matter. Arguments are due in March.
