Pima County sues Trump admin for withholding $10M for migrant shelters

Pima County, along with officials in Denver and Chicago, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Friday for withholding funds owed for operating shelters for migrants who were released by federal authorities.

In mid-March, an official from the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent a letter to the county, stating the agency would “temporarily” withhold payments for the Shelter and Services Program — a congressionally approved effort that sent more than $117 million in federal funds to help the county shelter around 518,00 asylum seekers over the last several years, including families with children.

The form letter was sent to dozens of local governments and organizations informing them of the funding hold while announcing the Trump administration would “investigate” whether officials violated federal law by “harboring” asylum seekers who were processed by immigration officials and released to pursue their legal cases. As part of the review, FEMA demanded officials provide personal information on each migrant, which officials called a “red herring” and said the demand “largely duplicates what plaintiffs have already provided to FEMA.” 

Since then, FEMA officials have refused to pay reimbursements, leaving Pima County on the hook for around $10 million, said Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher earlier this year. 

FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

Pima County, along with officials in Denver and Chicago, filed their lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois, arguing FEMA’s decision violates the Constitution by usurping Congress’ ability to enact and fund programs, and said FEMA’s demand for an investigation into the spending was “absurd” and a “pretext” to cover the Trump administration’s animus toward the shelter program. 

“In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the federal government began awarding these funds to the county and we accepted them to ensure public health and safety,” said Pima County Board Chair Rex Scott. “Acting as an earnest partner in this endeavor, we then provided sheltering services in good faith. We relied on these congressionally appropriated funds and adhered to every regulation and law.” 

“Now, under the second Trump administration, the federal government is suddenly changing the rules while sending confusing communications about reimbursement requirements along with arbitrary response deadlines for ambiguous and conflicting demands, and is then non-responsive for months about whether they’re going to comply with federal law,” Scott said.

“Immigration is a federal responsibility, and we’ve said all along that we would only provide sheltering services if the federal government paid for them,” he said. “It appears DHS/FEMA are now refusing to disburse congressionally-approved funds. In order to advocate for our taxpayers and protect the county budget, we had no choice but to seek relief in federal court.” 

‘A legal gloss’

In the 53-page complaint filed Friday, Pima County and officials from Denver and Chicago said that FEMA has “in violation of governing regulations” sat on reimbursements for months. 

For Chicago, officials have waited 99 days for reimbursements, while Pima County has waited for 161 days for reimbursements for money. 

Meanwhile, they said FEMA has eliminated access to an online portal to handle payments while “simultaneously demanding that grantees submit close-out documentation to facilitate its winding up of the program. In short, FEMA has decided that the Shelter and Services Program is gone, and grantees are simply left with the paperwork.”

In a March letter, Cameron Hamilton, then the Trump administration’s “Senior Official Performing the Duties of FEMA Administrator” said FEMA would withhold funding because the Department of Homeland Security “has significant concerns that SSP funding is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities.” 

As part of his letter, Hamilton demanded officials provide the name and contact information of each migrant who was provided services, “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided,” and proof of provision. Alternatively, the county can provide a written statement that all of that information has already been provided to DHS/FEMA, he wrote.

Hamilton was sacked last week after he told Congress it was not in the “best interest of the American people to eliminate” FEMA, and was replaced by David Richardson. Richardson is named in the lawsuit. 

Local shelter staffers have routinely collected the A-numbers, which are assigned by CBP, from every migrant entering their facilities, and county officials have been including that information when submitting requests for reimbursement from federal grant officials.

Chicago, Denver, and Pima County officials each said they provided this information, as well as itemized lists of expenses, and the required documentation. Yet, despite fulfilling the agency’s demands, FEMA has yet to pay. 

Pima County said from September 2023 through March 2024 they submitted four budgets that were approved.

Pima County has submitted multiple draw requests under the 2023 Pima SSP Grant and received payments, including around $3 million in October 2024. In November, they were told FEMA would review their documents, and conduct a financial and programmatic monitoring site visit on January 15.  This was later changed to a  “desk review” scheduled for March. 

Pima County submitted a second request for reimbursement for nearly $5.8 million, and officials asked for more documents, which the county provided in February. 

Officials asked about the desk review, and were told they would receive additional information soon, but since then,  Pima County “has received no additional communication related to the desk review. The March deadline came and went “with no additional correspondence from FEMA related to the impending review.” 

Preventing ‘street releases’

For nearly six years, Pima County received federal funding as part of a partnership with Catholic Community Services in Tucson dubbed Casa Alitas. The program sought to assist migrants after they were released by Customs and Border Protection and was managed by FEMA and CBP as authorized by Congress. The funding was part of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act, which passed through Congress in 2019 and was signed into law by Trump.

The effort successfully worked to prevent “street releases” of asylum seekers dropped off by immigration authorities without any immediate place to go or any resources, county officials have said of their work.

Since September 2023, the effort — aided by state emergency managers — also helped transport thousands of people dropped off by CBP in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties, relieving pressure to the smaller counties. 

“Many of these migrants arrived penniless and—lacking legal authority to work—in need of immediate shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. To address this humanitarian crisis, plaintiffs—three local governments—expended substantial resources providing these basic necessities while helping migrants become self-sufficient,” wrote attorneys. 

“For example, to prevent new arrivals from immediately becoming homeless upon release by DHS, plaintiff Pima County coordinated directly with DHS to transition migrants out of DHS custody and into local services.”

While Trump signed the program into law in 2019, he later bashed the program, accusing the Biden administration of stealing the money “like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.” 

For years, FEMA repeatedly disbursed funds to shelter migrants released by DHS for  “services necessitated by the federal government’s immigration policies,” attorneys wrote. 

However, they said that changed on Feb. 10 when Elon Musk claimed FEMA was violating President Trump’s executive orders by continuing the funds as required to New York and he promised to “‘clawback’ the funds,” according to the lawsuit. 

Musk went to Washington D.C. as the purported head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency—named in reference to a Internet meme about a cartoon dog featuring a Shiba Inu—and attempted to slash several federal agencies, largely those that hem in his various businesses. As part of his social media posts, Musk repeatedly accused without logic or facts, that Democrats were bringing people into the U.S. to create a new Democratic voting block, and has since promoted the idea that white South Africans face “white genocide” —and that convinced Trump to grant white South Africans refugee status, even as he cuts refugee and asylum programs for every one else. 

“FEMA’s then-Acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton understood the assignment,” the lawsuit said. “That same day, Hamilton responded to Musk’s tweet by stating that ‘Congress should have never passed bills … asking FEMA to do this”; FEMA recouped the funds from New York City; and FEMA zeroed out all Shelter and Services Program grant balances—without informing grantees.” 

“More than one month later, FEMA attempted to put a legal gloss on what the agency had already done,” they wrote, noting Hamilton sent “substantively identical letters informing Shelter and Services Program grantees that FEMA was withholding funding while the agency investigated whether grantees violated a federal law that criminalizes, under specified circumstances, harboring people who are in the United States unlawfully.”

“This ‘investigation’ was pure pretext,” they added, writing that “FEMA had already decided to eliminate the Shelter and Services Program. And the notion that grantees commit crimes by providing services that Congress authorized in enacting and funding the Shelter and Services Program is absurd. Congress does not fund illegal activity.”

They noted FEMA officials did not even hold to their own self-imposed deadline for grantees to respond to the agency’s investigation’ before sending substantively identical letters terminating all Shelter and Services Program grants. This time FEMA based its decision not on grantees’ alleged violations of federal law, but rather on FEMA’s determination that the grants do not effectuate the agency’s new priorities. These terminations deprive Plaintiffs of tens of millions of dollars in reimbursement for services that Plaintiffs provided in reliance on FEMA’s grants.

Officials in Chicago also complained officials in Texas, including non-governmental organizations, bused more than 50,000 people from August 2022 to December 2024 forcing the city to establish its own New Arrivals Operation, and spend more than $600 million. Officials in Denver received over 40,000 people from December 2022 to November 2024, and spent $79 million to support immigrants. 

January wind-down

In January, Lesher said the county would wind down its shelter efforts after it became clear federal officials had stopped releasing legally processed asylum seekers. 

In a memo to the supervisors that month, Lesher wrote changes following Trump’s inauguration “resulted in zero releases” of migrants seeking asylum to either of the county’s shelters: a 600-person shelter on West Drexel Road and the shelter on East Ajo Way, which can support around 100 people with help from Catholic Community Services. 

“This will likely bring to a close one of the most significant humanitarian aid programs undertaken by Pima County and its regional partners in the county’s history,” Lesher wrote then.

As the shelter program came to an end, Lesher praised the county’s efforts. 

“Without the county’s leading role coordinating and obtaining the funding for the Temporary Shelter Program, more than a half-million people over the past six and a half years would have been left to fend for themselves on the streets of Tucson, Nogales, Douglas, and elsewhere in Southern Arizona,” she said. 

“This noble and humane program has involved dozens of county and city of Tucson staff, numerous local governments and nongovernmental agencies, and the kind and tireless contributions of hundreds of volunteers,” Lesher said.