Attorney General Ellison secures final ruling blocking illegal conditioning of transportation grant funding

November 4, 2025 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today secured a permanent injunction from the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island blocking the Trump Administration’s effort to unlawfully impose immigration enforcement requirements on billions of dollars in annual U.S. Department of Transportation grants. The final ruling follows multistate litigation and a preliminary injunction. 

In issuing a permanent injunction, the Court found that the Trump Administration has “blatantly overstepped their statutory authority, violated the APA, and transgressed well-settled constitutional limitations on federal funding conditions. The Constitution demands the Court set aside this lawless behavior.”

"Once again, a court has found that President Trump exceeded his authority and violated the law by trying to withhold money for Minnesota’s roads, bridges, and railways,” said Attorney General Ellison. “Minnesotans pay our taxes, and we expect that money to come back to our state to build and maintain our infrastructure and create good jobs in the process. Congress directed President Trump to fund infrastructure projects in Minnesota, and Trump cannot use those funds as a political bargaining chip. I don’t wake up every morning looking for reasons to sue this President, but when Trump violates the law and harms Minnesota, he unfortunately leaves me with no other choice than to meet him in court.”

Minnesota receives over $2 billion in grant funding from the Department of Transportation to support and maintain the roads, highways, railways, airways, and bridges that connect our communities and carry our residents to their workplaces and their homes. This includes funding to maintain and build highways. It also includes funding for transit systems in urban and rural communities across the state — including buses, subways, light rail, commuter rail, trolleys, and ferries. Neither the purpose of these grants, nor their grant criteria, are in any way connected to immigration enforcement. 

Joining Attorney General Ellison in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.