New York City Comptroller Brad Lander sent a letter to the city’s law department on Feb. 14 requesting that litigation be filed as soon as possible to recover $80.5 million designated for housing illegal immigrants by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Lander said that the $80.5 million had been clawed back by the federal government on Feb. 11 from the Shelter and Services Program without notice. He said the Trump administration ordered the withdrawal and that this action jeopardizes the city’s ability to provide essential services.
The money was in grants awarded under the Biden administration in 2023 to enable non-federal groups to offset costs for servicing illegal immigrants in their communities.
Landers asked the law department to submit its response by the morning of February 18.
“This is highway robbery,“ Lander said in a post on X. ”Elon Musk, with no legal authority, illegally seized federal funds from New Yorkers.”
The withdrawal came after Elon Musk, who directs the Department of Government Efficiency, accused the city in an X post on Feb. 11 of spending $59 million on luxury hotel accommodations for illegal immigrants, a charge that city officials have denied.
The comptroller is running against Mayor Eric Adams in the Democratic primary scheduled for June. In an X post, Lander made the point that his candidacy is a form of resistance against President Donald Trump and that it is necessary to protect the city from the Trump administration for the next four years.
Lander also criticized Adams’s recent alignment with the Trump administration.
“If the Mayor would prefer to spend his days advancing President Trump’s agenda instead of fighting for New Yorkers, then the Law Department must allow me to do so,” he wrote.
The New York Post obtained a letter written by city Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant to Landers saying the mayor’s office will be taking legal action by Feb. 21 to get the $80 million back.
An Adams-initiated legal action against the Trump administration would be a switch in attitude for the mayor, who has been criticized by Democrats for his friendliness with the administration.
The Department of Justice has ordered the U.S. Attorney’s office to drop a bribery case against Adams, and Adams has pledged to cooperate with border czar Tom Homan.
Some Democrats have argued these two actions represent an illegal quid pro quo, and have called for the mayor to resign or for Gov. Kathy Hochul to depose him, a gubernatorial power not used in almost 100 years.
Adams spoke during a morning service at Maranatha Baptist Church in Queens Village on Feb. 16.
“I just find it so amazing that the most sanctified among us are calling for me to step down,” he said.
“I’m not going to step down, I’m going to step up.”
