The U.S. Justice Department asked an appeals court to dismiss its challenge to a lower-court injunction that blocked the Trump administration from tying federal transportation grants to state cooperation with immigration enforcement. A July ruling in Rhode Island found the Department of Transportation lacked authority to impose the condition and said it violated the Constitution. With the appeal dropped, the injunction remains, preserving access to billions in transportation funds for 20 Democratic-led states.
Justice Department Drops Appeal, Preserving States' Access to Billions in Transportation Grants
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters, on his return from Detroit, Michigan, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., January 13, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to dismiss its appeal of a lower-court order that barred the Trump administration from conditioning billions of dollars in federal transportation grants on state cooperation with immigration enforcement.
In July, a federal judge in Rhode Island found that the U.S. Department of Transportation lacked authority to require states to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to receive transportation funding and ruled that the condition violated the U.S. Constitution. The ruling covered 20 Democratic-led states that had challenged the funding requirement.
By dropping the appeal, the Justice Department left the injunction in place, preserving those states' access to transportation grants without an immigration-enforcement requirement. The move ends the government's immediate effort to overturn the lower-court decision while the injunction remains effective.
Context: The policy had attempted to make federal transportation assistance contingent on state cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Opponents argued the condition exceeded the Department of Transportation's statutory authority and violated constitutional limits on federal coercion of states.
Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Tom Hogue.
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