PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's attempt to reallocate federal Homeland Security funding away from states that refuse to cooperate with certain federal immigration enforcement.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy's ruling on Monday solidified a win for the coalition of 12 attorneys general that sued the administration earlier this year after being alerted that their states would receive drastically reduced federal grants due to their “sanctuary” jurisdictions.
In total, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency reduced more than $233 million from Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The money is part of a $1 billion program where allocations are supposed to be based on assessed risks, with states then largely passing most of the money on to police and fire departments.
The cuts were unveiled shortly after a separate federal judge in a different legal challenge ruled it was unconstitutional for the federal government to require states to cooperate on immigration enforcement actions to get FEMA disaster funding.
In her 48-page ruling, McElroy found that the federal government was weighing states' police on federal immigration enforcement on whether to reduce federal funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program and others.
“What else could defendants’ decisions to cut funding to specific counterterrorism programming by conspicuous round numbered amounts — including by slashing off the millions-place digits of awarded sums — be if not arbitrary and capricious? Neither a law degree nor a degree in mathematics is required to deduce that no plausible, rational formula could produce this result,” McElroy wrote.
The Trump-appointed judge then ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore the previously announced funding allocations to the plaintiff states.
“Defendants’ wanton abuse of their role in federal grant administration is particularly troublesome given the fact that they have been entrusted with a most solemn duty: safeguarding our nation and its citizens," McElroy wrote. "While the intricacies of administrative law and the terms and conditions on federal grants may seem abstract to some, the funding at issue here supports vital counterterrorism and law enforcement programs.”
McElroy notably cited the recent Brown University attack, where a gunman killed two students and injured nine others, as an event where the $1 billion federal program would be vital in responding to such a tragedy.
“To hold hostage funding for programs like these based solely on what appear to be defendants’ political whims is unconscionable and, at least here, unlawful,” the Rhode Island-based judge wrote in her ruling, issued little more than a week after the Brown shooting.
DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the department plans on fighting the order.
“This judicial sabotage threatens the safety of our states, counties, towns, and weakens the entire nation," McLaughlin said. "We will fight to restore these critical reforms and protect American lives.”
Meanwhile, attorneys general who sued the administration applauded the order.
“This victory ensures that the Trump Administration cannot punish states that refuse to help carry out its cruel immigration agenda, particularly by denying them lifesaving funding that helps prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies,” said Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a statement.
FILE - The Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters is photographed in Washington, May 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
A makeshift memorial is seen on the campus of Brown University, close to from the scene of the shooting, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
BRISTOL, Pa. (AP) — A thunderous explosion at a nursing home just outside Philadelphia collapsed part of the building, sent flames shooting out and left people injured and trapped inside, authorities said.
The explosion happened at Bristol Health & Rehab Center in Bristol Township, just as a utility crew had been on site looking for a gas leak, although the cause of the explosion was unclear several hours later, as was the extent of the casualties.
A plume of black smoke rose from the nursing home, as emergency responders, fire trucks and ambulances from across the region rushed there, joined by earthmoving equipment.
Authorities said there were injuries, but had yet to say whether there were any fatalities.
Police Lt. Sean Cosgrove said he didn’t know if anyone was missing, and that residents had been evacuated by emergency responders, bystanders and staff.
“A lot of the details at this point are still unknown,” he told reporters at the scene.
Bucks County emergency management officials said they received the report of an explosion at approximately 2:17 p.m. and said a portion of the building was reported to have collapsed. Ruth Miller, a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokesperson, said her agency had been informed that people were trapped inside.
Willie Tye, who lives about a block away, said he was sitting at home watching a basketball game on TV when he heard a “loud kaboom.”
“I thought an airplane or something came and fell on my house,” Tye said.
He got up to go look and saw “fire everywhere” and people escaping the building. The explosion looked like it happened in the kitchen area of the nursing home, he said. Tye said some of the people who live or work there didn’t make it out.
“Just got to keep praying for them,” Tye said.
The cause of the explosion was unclear.
The local gas utility, PECO, said its crews had responded to reports of a gas odor at the nursing home shortly after 2 p.m.
“While crews were on site, an explosion occurred at the facility. PECO crews shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility to ensure the safety of first responders and local residents,” the utility said in a statement.
Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, press secretary at the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, said investigators from the safety division were headed to the scene.
Hagen-Frederiksen said first responders and emergency management officials were describing it as a gas explosion, but that won’t be confirmed until his agency can examine the scene up close.
Musuline Watson, who said she was a certified nursing assistant the facility, told WPVI-TV/ABC 6 that, over the weekend, she and others there smelled gas, but “there was no heat in the room, so we didn’t take it to be anything.”
The 174-bed nursing home is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Philadelphia. Its owner, Saber Healthcare Group, said it was working with local emergency authorities. The facility had been known until recently as Silver Lake Healthcare Center.
The latest state inspection report for the facility was in October and the Pennsylvania Department of Health found that it was not in compliance with several state regulations.
The inspection report said the facility failed to provide an accurate set of floor plans and to properly maintain several stairways, including storing multiple paint buckets and a bed frame under landings.
It also said the facility failed to maintain portable fire extinguishers on one of the three levels and failed to provide the required “smoke barrier partitions,” which are designed to contain smoke on two floors. It also said it didn’t properly store oxygen cylinders on two of three floors.
According to Medicare.gov, the facility underwent a standard fire safety inspection in September 2024, during which no citations were issued. But Medicare’s overall rating of the facility is listed as “much below average,” with poor ratings for health inspections in particular.
Associated Press reporter Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report. Levy and Scolforo reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
First responders work the scene of an explosion and fire at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Bristol, Pa. (Monica Herndon/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
Montgomery County search and rescue join first responders at the scene of an explosion and fire at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Bristol Township, Pa. (Monica Herndon/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
First responders work the scene of an explosion and fire at Bristol Health & Rehab Center, Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025, in Bristol Township, Pa. (Monica Herndon/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
CORRECTS NAME OF FACILITY - First responders gather at the scene of an explosion at Bristol Health & Rehab Center in Bristol Township, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)
First responders gather at the scene of an explosion at Silver Lake Healthcare Center in Bristol Township, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)
First responders are on the scene of a fire after an explosion at a nursing home in Bristol Township, Pa., on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025. (WPVI-TV/6ABC via AP)
