New York filed a lawsuit Friday asking a judge to restore $80 million in migrant aid money that the Trump administration plucked out of the city’s accounts earlier this month.
City officials said the feds quietly reached into a New York bank account and “grabbed $80,481,861.42,” just a week after the Federal Emergency Management Agency had paid out the funds.
The city said the clawback was illegal, and all the more dastardly because it was done “without communicating any decision or rationale.”
“Because defendants took the extraordinary and lawless measure of seizing money from the City’s bank account — by surprise, and without notice — the city seeks the extraordinary remedy of mandatory injunctive relief to compel defendants to return the money,” Muriel Goode-Trufant, the city’s corporation counsel, told the U.S. court in the southern district of New York.
The money became a flashpoint in the immigration debate after Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President Trump, posted about the spending on social media.
He said the payments — which he identified as just $59 million — had been made unlawfully. He said the spending was “discovered” by the Department of Government Efficiency, the White House office Mr. Trump has given Mr. Musk permission to oversee.
“A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds,” Mr. Musk said on Feb. 10.
New York says the money in question — more than $80 million — was all legal, and was paid under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Service Program, a $600 million fund allocated by Congress to pay states and localities for welcoming unauthorized migrants into their communities.
New York said it spent billions to accommodate hundreds of thousands of new migrant arrivals under President Biden so it deserved the payback from the feds.
FEMA fired four employees involved in making the payments, and true to Mr. Musk’s promise, the federal government did claw back the money.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.