The law is the law — depending on who you ask.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell joined two lawsuits Tuesday over the Trump administration’s attempt to tie immigration requirements to federal grants.
The Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA, and the Department of Transportation have both imposed new conditions to receive federal funding that would require states to assist with federal immigration enforcement efforts. If states do not comply, they could lose out on billions of federal dollars used for public safety, emergency services and transportation infrastructure, as USA Today reported.
“Threatening to withhold federal funding appropriated by Congress as a way to bully states into aiding and abetting the Trump Administration’s fear-driven and inhumane immigration policies isn’t just unconstitutional — it’s extortion,” said Campbell.
What then, is the push to get cities and towns to comply with the MBTA Communities ACT, which the Healey administration has tied to grant funding for affected municipalities? Comply with the law and the funding flows; try to opt out and watch the dollars fly away.
Entering the U.S. illegally is against the law, and yet Massachusetts leaders are only too happy to impede, aka, resist efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to enforce it, and bemoan federal funding withheld because of their non-compliance.
That funding cutoff is being felt by Bay State leaders, but there is a silver lining. Gov. Healey said she plans to freeze hiring across executive branch agencies and departments later this month in response to “widespread economic uncertainty” at the national level and a “tightening budget outlook” for the next fiscal year.
Healey will have to run a tight ship, and that’s something taxpayers have long wanted.
It’s what private-sector institutions do regularly when revenues weaken, and it should be the go-to move for government as well.
Healey and other Massachusetts leaders are reacting to “further anticipated federal funding cuts” by Trump and funding that’s already been withheld. It’s not a great position to be in, but it wasn’t inevitable.
“We are taking this step to prepare for more uncertain economic times, protect taxpayer dollars, and move our state forward while ensuring funding will be available for the vital services people need,” Healey said in a statement Wednesday.
That’s what a state budget’s priority should be: vital services for constituents, easy on the administrative padding.
Brian Shortsleeve, a venture capitalist and former MBTA executive who launched a Republican run for governor this week, said the hiring freeze was “long overdue” in the face of a growing budget hole.
“Healey’s hiring freeze is a finger in a dam about to burst,” Shortsleeve said in a statement. “She needs to pull back her out-of-control budget and start over with a new budget that recognizes the limits to taxpayers’ ability to finance her wish list.”
It shouldn’t take a sudden kink in the fiscal hose to spur responsible spending in government. And it’s past time for the state to recognize the hypocrisy of tying funding to MBTA Communities Act compliance while blasting Trump for linking federal cash to compliance with immigration law.
