Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration Thursday, asking a federal court to block election and immigration requirements attached to billions of dollars in emergency-management and homeland-security funding.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, challenges policies adopted by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The coalition argues that the administration is attempting to use congressionally authorized public-safety grants to force states to change election procedures and support federal immigration-enforcement priorities.

The most immediate dispute concerns the fiscal 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program, a collection of FEMA-administered grants supporting state and local efforts to prevent, prepare for and respond to terrorism and other major threats. FEMA lists approximately $1.064 billion in available funding for the program this fiscal year.

Under the program’s 2026 funding notice, FEMA will withhold an amount equal to 20% of a state or qualifying urban area’s total award until the recipient submits proof that it has complied with designated election-security requirements and DHS confirms that compliance.

The challenged requirements call for states to transition to qualifying paper-ballot systems, perform manual audits of voting systems, reconcile the number of participating voters with the number of ballots cast and verify the citizenship of registered voters in state databases. The states say those directives intrude on election administration, an area in which state governments have traditionally exercised broad constitutional and statutory authority.

The withheld money could affect the State Homeland Security Program, the Urban Area Security Initiative and Operation Stonegarden, the three components of the broader grant program. State and local governments use those funds for activities that can include cybersecurity, intelligence coordination, emergency communications, critical-infrastructure protection, training and preparedness for terrorist attacks.

Although the dispute has been widely described as involving disaster aid, the Homeland Security Grant Program is principally a preparedness and counterterrorism program rather than the system FEMA uses to provide direct assistance to households after hurricanes, floods or wildfires. The lawsuit nevertheless reaches other FEMA and DHS funding policies that the states say could disrupt their ability to prepare for and respond to emergencies.

The complaint also challenges conditions related to immigration enforcement. According to the states and reporting on the filing, the administration is requiring recipients to assist DHS immigration priorities while reserving broad authority to terminate grants. The coalition argues that states should not be forced to surrender control over their law-enforcement personnel or change policies governing cooperation between local agencies and federal immigration authorities to receive unrelated safety funding.

The plaintiffs contend that the conditions violate the Constitution’s Spending Clause, which permits Congress to attach requirements to federal funds but places limits on executive agencies’ ability to create new conditions after money has been appropriated. They also allege violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, including claims that the policies exceed the agencies’ statutory authority and are arbitrary or insufficiently connected to the purposes established by Congress.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose office has helped lead several multistate funding cases, accused the administration of jeopardizing public safety to pressure states into relinquishing policymaking authority. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another plaintiff, said the federal government was holding homeland-security and disaster-response funding “hostage” as part of an effort to exert greater control over elections.

The coalition includes California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Wisconsin, among other states. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also joined the action, as did Shapiro on behalf of Pennsylvania. The participation of governors in some states reflects differences in state law over which officials have authority to initiate litigation involving federal funding.

FEMA rejected the states’ characterization of the requirements. An agency spokesperson called the lawsuit partisan opposition to what the administration considers common-sense election safeguards. The agency said election security is a national-security issue and argued that concerns involving voting processes, registration practices and data protection justify federal action.

The administration’s position treats election infrastructure as part of the country’s broader critical-infrastructure network. Federal agencies have long supported cybersecurity and physical-security improvements for election offices, but the new dispute centers on whether DHS can make specific voting procedures and citizenship-verification practices prerequisites for receiving grants primarily authorized for terrorism preparedness.

The lawsuit follows earlier legal fights over the Trump administration’s use of federal funding conditions. Courts have previously blocked attempts to tie certain FEMA and transportation grants to state cooperation with immigration enforcement. A separate dispute over the allocation of homeland-security funding was resolved after the administration abandoned an appeal, leaving in place a ruling favoring the participating states.

Those earlier decisions do not automatically determine the outcome of the new case. The government can argue that the 2026 requirements are tied to protecting critical infrastructure and preventing foreign interference, cyberattacks or insider threats. The states, however, are likely to emphasize that the funds were appropriated for defined public-safety purposes and that Congress did not authorize DHS to rewrite state election systems through grant notices.

The timing adds urgency. FEMA opened applications for several fiscal 2026 preparedness programs on June 24, with the application period scheduled to close at 5 p.m. Eastern time on July 24. States must make funding and operational decisions while the contested conditions remain part of the federal grant framework.

The litigation could ultimately establish important boundaries for conditional federal spending. Courts reviewing the case will be asked to consider whether the requirements were clearly authorized, sufficiently related to the grant programs and presented in a manner that gives states a genuine choice rather than coercing them through the threatened loss of essential funding.

The case will also unfold against the political backdrop of the 2026 midterm elections. President Donald Trump has continued to press for federal involvement in voter-registration practices and voting-system standards, while state officials from both parties have defended state authority over election administration. The Rhode Island lawsuit now places part of that conflict before a federal judge, with public-safety funding and state sovereignty at the center of the dispute.