Cities team up to sue Trump admin over terror and nuclear funding freeze, blast DHS for 'impairing' ability to protect
Source: Law & Crime
Jun 17th, 2025, 1:46 pm
Five major cities in states across the country are suing the Trump administration over the “unlawful” freezing of federal funds that are supposed to help shield metropolitan areas from terrorist and nuclear attacks, saying the government has “unconstitutionally usurped Congress’s authority” and “violated the Constitution’s separation of powers” by withholding millions from them.
“DHS’s funding freeze is … already impairing plaintiffs’ ability to protect public safety,” the cities allege in an amended complaint filed Monday in Illinois, where lawyers for the city of Chicago sparked the legal fight last month after the Department of Homeland Security announced its funding pause on May 14.
Attorneys for San Francisco, Denver, Boston and Seattle joined forces with the Windy City this week — claiming their cities are also suffering from similar public safety issues and concerns related to the freeze, at a time when they say it’s needed most.
“On information and belief, DHS’s inaction is part of a programmatic freeze of Securing the Cities funding,” the complaint charges. “Plaintiffs have told vendors to stop work on vital equipment and have canceled training designed to protect against terrorist attacks.” The cities allege that Trump has cut off “Securing the Cities” program funds that have been used to buy “equipment designed to detect nuclear and other radiological materials that could be used to commit terrorist attacks” and train employees how to use it.
Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/illegally-yanked-cities-team-up-to-sue-trump-admin-over-terror-and-nuclear-funding-freeze-blast-dhs-for-impairing-ability-to-protect-public-safety/
Full headline: ‘Illegally yanked’: Cities team up to sue Trump admin over terror and nuclear funding freeze, blast DHS for ‘impairing’ ability to protect public safety
Link to COMPLAINT (PDF) - https://sfcityattorney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/File-Stamped-Amended-Complaint-Securing-the-Cities.pdf
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it's *possible* (at least from what I remember having to deal with in my agency), that since GSA restricts how much should be spent "per quarter" to some percentage, they may have already obligated more than that "set" amount for the 2nd quarter (Jan - Mar) and what is currently the 3rd quarter (Apr - Jun)... but still may have money left for the rest of the FY IF they don't spend it to the degree they are obviously spending.
We used to rail about that because we ended up scrimping for much of the fiscal year (Oct - ~July) and then come the summer, we have all this money that has to be spent by September 30. Year after year after year. The vendors that focus on government business were always waiting for that summer spurt of buying. 
When stuff like that happens, Congress will usually passes some kind of "Supplemental Appropriation" over the summer to add to the funding if there was some situation that caused that higher spend.
As it is, they are all operating under a C.R. and that was generally the same amount of funding as last FY. Trying to "reprogram" that might be illegal but then they don't care about laws as they have already violated the Antideficiency and Impoundment Acts and no one seems to care, and the courts are taking their time on it. 