FEMA Can Freeze Money for Migrant Shelter Program in New York, Judge Says

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has the authority to halt payments to New York City for a program designed to shelter migrants, a federal judge ordered on Wednesday.

But the judge, John J. McConnell Jr. of U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, made clear that his order had no bearing on the legality of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to halt payments across the government. Judge McConnell had previously ordered the administration to lift that broader payment freeze. That order remains in effect.

The order marked the latest twist in FEMA’s work to shelter migrants, which has become politically fraught. Congress directed FEMA to provide grants to state and local governments to help pay the costs of housing migrants, through the Shelter and Services Program. But President Trump, congressional Republicans and Elon Musk have pointed to the program, misleadingly, as evidence that FEMA is acting inappropriately.

Mr. Musk, the billionaire leading the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government, said in a social media post on Monday morning that the money provided through the program “is meant for American disaster relief.” That is not accurate; disaster relief money comes from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund while money for the Shelter and Services Program comes from a separate fund.

On Tuesday, FEMA fired four employees for their work disbursing federal funds under the migrant shelter program. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, said that the four employees had been terminated “for circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury N.Y.C. hotels for migrants.”

Ms. McLaughlin did not specify how the employees had undermined leadership, or how making payments previously appropriated by Congress amounted to unilateral conduct.

Also on Tuesday, Cameron Hamilton, the acting head of FEMA, asked the court for permission to freeze funding that the agency was providing to New York through the Shelter and Services Program. Under that program, which was approved by Congress, FEMA reimburses state and local governments for housing migrants who are released from federal custody.

New York was using “a substantial portion” of its funding under that program to house migrants at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, Mr. Hamilton wrote to the court. He said FEMA believed, based on news reports, that a Venezuelan gang had taken over the hotel, using it as a “base of operations to plan a variety of crimes,” including gun and drug sales and sex trafficking.

Unless the court allowed FEMA to freeze its payments to New York under the migrant shelter program, the agency would “likely fund criminal activity.”

In his order Wednesday, Judge McConnell wrote that FEMA did not need his permission to halt payments to New York under the program. Nothing in his previous orders “prevents the defendants from continuing to use routine processes,” Judge McConnell wrote.