President Donald Trump speaks before a lunch with Ukraine”s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
Two sanctuary cities in Massachusetts have redoubled their efforts to bar the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding.
In February, the cities of Chelsea and Somerville filed a 46-page lawsuit “to prevent the federal Executive Branch from defunding their police forces and other essential public safety functions as part of a politicized attack” on jurisdictions across the country.
While many cities on government-authored lists took pains – in and out of courtrooms – to distance themselves from the concept of offering individuals sanctuary from the policies of the federal government, both of the suing cities have long embraced the idea. Chelsea and Somerville refer to themselves as a “sanctuary city” and “welcoming community,” respectively – decades-old designations.
But while time and political regimes have not lessened either city’s conviction, months have passed since the litigation began and so has at least some of the “factual landscape” undergirding the legal dispute, a joint status report filed earlier this month explains.
On Thursday, the cities filed a 70-page second amended complaint taking stock of several recent developments since the government shutdown stayed proceedings in the case in early October.
The foremost change since the lawsuit was originally filed is a set of “immigration-related grant conditions” imposed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in an April letter that seeks to effectuate several anti-immigrant executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.
That letter reads, in relevant part:
No state or unit of general local government that receives HUD funding under [sic] may use that funding in a manner that by design or effect facilitates the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration or abets policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.
In September, HUD notified Somerville that to receive three different sets of funds, it must sign three separate grant agreements that include the language from the April letter.
“Based on the formulas by which these programs are funded, Somerville is due to receive in excess of $3.2 million for the three HUD programs combined this fiscal year,” the new version of the lawsuit explains. “Somerville plans to use that significant allocation to fund a range of services and activities to benefit its low- and moderate-income residents, including affordable housing, public infrastructure, and homelessness prevention services.”
The city, of course, does not want to agree to such terms.
“Defendants may exercise only authority granted to them by statute,” the latest filing reads. “No law or provision of the Constitution authorizes HUD to impose extra-statutory conditions not authorized by Congress. HUD’s efforts to deny funds to jurisdictions that do not cooperate with the Subsidization Executive Order are blatantly unlawful.”
And, after receiving updated budgetary data, both cities say the loss of federal funds – from various federal agencies – would significantly harm them well beyond the HUD grants.
“Plaintiffs rely on various sources of federal funding—in the range of tens of millions of dollars—to fill critical budgetary needs in the management of their respective cities,” the second amended complaint continues. “Plaintiffs face the very real and imminent termination of federal funding, which will immediately result in a slew of harms.”
The cities say that without the funds, they would be “immediately in the red” because many such grants are “reimbursement-based,” meaning the money has already been spent, offering the prospect of a so-called “fiscal cliff.”
The cities also say several of the current contracts rely on the funds, that critical services will be cut without them, and that municipal staff will have to be laid off.
But, while contemplating several bad scenarios, the cities do not mince words about how they view the funding threats.
“Defendants’ illegal campaign against sanctuary cities aims to force local jurisdictions to sacrifice public safety resources and to supplant their well-founded determinations about what is best for their residents,” the latest iteration of the lawsuit goes on. “This unlawful and unconstitutional assault is particularly harmful for smaller cities like Plaintiffs, whose residents are grievously harmed by any termination of federal funding.”
And the cities say they are being singled out.
“There is no question that Plaintiffs Chelsea and Somerville have been directly targeted by this Administration’s unlawful campaign,” the filing goes on, before referencing one of the aforementioned lists of sanctuary jurisdictions. “Their inclusion on this list signals the Administration’s erroneous belief that Plaintiffs violate federal immigration law.”
While insisting neither city has taken any action to impede immigration raids, the current iteration of the lawsuit took aim at the Trump administration over the funding threats and the agenda behind them.
Again, the filing, at length (emphasis in original):
Defendants’ illegal attack on sanctuary cities relies on threats and intimidation: 1) threatening and taking actions to withhold federal funds from cities that refuse to bend to Defendants’ will, even if those funds have nothing to do with Defendants’ stated aims and even if Congress has given no directive toward that end; and 2) threatening and pursuing criminal and civil prosecution of those who are deemed insufficiently compliant. In this manner, Defendants’ attack on sanctuary cities improperly seeks to not only undermine, but fully control, what is fundamentally local decision-making; usurps the role of Congress and its Spending Power; injects significant uncertainty into local governance due to its vagueness; and thereby violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
“What the Administration is doing is punishing sanctuary cities because of those cities’ well-founded local decisions, by vindictively withdrawing and threatening to withdraw funding, even if those funds have nothing to do with the Administration’s stated aims and even if Congress has given no directive toward that end,” the second amended complaint goes on. “The Administration cannot legislate, as that is the domain of Congress, and the Executive Orders and the implementing Agency Directives are blatantly unconstitutional efforts to harm Plaintiffs and their communities.”
