New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration in an endeavor to receive reimbursement for providing temporary housing to illegal immigrants.
On Friday, the Big Apple sued after the Trump administration rescinded more than $80 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency’s funds sent to New York City as payback for housing illegal immigrants in hotels.
“The $80 million was approved, paid for, and then rescinded, all while our city spent more than $7 billion of our own funds over the last three years,” Adams said in a statement. “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.”
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The federal reimbursements in question were appropriated to New York City under the Biden administration as part of the Shelter and Services Program, which is administered by FEMA and is meant to help local governments overwhelmed by illegal immigrants.
But when President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency discovered the payments earlier this month, the new administration criticized the funding as illegal.
Elon Musk, who leads DOGE, argued that FEMA “violated the law” because it sent out millions in reimbursements to New York City after Trump’s executive order prohibiting the distribution of public benefits to people living in the country illegally.
New York City officials contend that the funding remains legal because it was previously approved by Congress under the Biden administration.
The Trump administration rescinded over $80 million in FEMA reimbursements “out of a city bank account… without notice or administrative process of any kind, violating federal regulations and terms of the Shelter and Service Program grant terms, as well as abusing the federal government’s authority and obligations to implement congressionally-approved and funded programs,” New York City’s lawsuit alleges.
In accordance with New York City’s right-to-shelter law, the Big Apple has been legally bound to provide temporary housing to over 231,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers over the past few years.
The law was passed in 1981 in response to a lawsuit from homeless men suffering from chronic alcoholism who were sleeping on the streets.
As he argued during a recent interview with Dr. Phil, Adams has often said that “the right to shelter law never was intended for a humanitarian crisis of housing everyone across the globe.”
“No one thought that was going to mean 225,000 migrants and asylum seekers,” he continued.“This was a lawsuit that was passed years ago the group of men who were homeless did not have shelter, and that lawsuit was passed and put in place that is different than what we are experiencing right now with the migrants and asylum seekers.”
The Adams administration challenged the law in 2023, citing immense economic strains the influx of asylum seekers taking advantage of the right to shelter had put on the city. A settlement agreement reached in March 2024 scaled back some right-to-shelter provisions.
Adams’ latest attempt to recoup steep financial losses he says the city took from housing illegal immigrants comes as he is embroiled in a fight to save his political career.
New York Democrats accused the mayor of quid pro quo with the Trump administration earlier this month, launching a controversy that caused Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) to consider removing him from office, a move she decided against on Thursday.
The allegations against Adams came after he cooperated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target people in the city illegally who had committed crimes. Critics said he had been essentially bribed by the Trump administration to do so because the mayor’s actions came shortly after the Department of Justice halted a corruption case against the mayor.
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The DOJ’s memorandum said it was seeking to drop the case because it believed the previous justice department had weaponized the system against Adams for political reasons due to his resistance to the Biden administration’s relaxed illegal immigration policies.
“We are particularly concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams’s ability to support critical ongoing federal efforts to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement,” Acting DOJ Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote in the memorandum.