The Department of Justice, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi, is facing a lawsuit from community advocacy groups over what they call “unlawful” reductions in a grant program designed to tackle hate crimes.

The suing parties, including Right to Be and South Asian Network, claim that the executive department has overstepped its authority, infringing on the legislative branch’s power by reducing grants that Congress had already approved and initiated.

At the heart of their July 2 complaint is the allegation that the Trump administration”s April revocation of the grants constitutes a violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process, the separation of powers, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). To hear the plaintiffs tell it, the move is “yet another overreach of power.”

“Plaintiffs … applied for and duly received grants under this [Anti-Hate Crimes Grant Program] to address hate incidents. In furtherance of their missions, Plaintiffs have built entire programs, staked their reputations, and hired staff while relying on those funds,” the complaint’s introduction states, adding that they have or are designing programs “to promote community safety by empowering community members to combat hate crimes and other forms of bigotry.”

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The lawsuit, which seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, continues, at length:

But on April 22, 2025, midstream of a three-year grant, Defendants abruptly and without justification dismantled the Congressionally created Anti-Hate Crimes Grant Program by the same mass-mailed boilerplate termination notices (which failed to offer any individualized explanation). Each of Plaintiffs’ grants were part of this complete defunding, at a time when, despite the nation emerging from the pandemic-era overall spike in crime, the need to address serious criminal activities like hate crimes persisted. Now more than ever, the promise of these collaborations between law enforcement and community organizations is essential. But as it has in numerous instances before, this Administration has usurped what is within the province of the legislative branch and, instead, prioritized its own policy preferences by dismantling an entire grant program properly created and funded by Congress.

The DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs, also listed as a defendant in the complaint, awarded millions of dollars in grants the last three fiscal years to organizations such as Right to be and South Asian Network in the wake of hate crimes skyrocketing during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The grants were designed to support community-based efforts to tamp down on hate crimes and support law enforcement and legal efforts to prevent future offenses.

However, a new administration entered office this January – and a new Congress entered Washington, D.C., too. The President Donald Trump-led federal government has made it a mission to cancel grants, programs, and jobs it regards as “wasteful.” But many, such as the plaintiffs in this lawsuit and lawmakers like New York Rep. Grace Meng – who wrote a letter to Bondi pleading for the hate crime prevention funding to be restored — the grants are not “wasteful.” As Meng put it, they help to promote the attorney general’s own mission of upholding law and order.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice, one of the legal groups representing the plaintiffs, excoriated the Trump administration in statements attached to last week’s 46-page lawsuit. They see the canceling of funding not just as unlawful, but as a deliberate effort to “weaken civil rights and public safety.”

“The termination of the Anti-Hate Crimes Grant Program is yet another overreach of power by the Trump Administration,” said John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “Let’s be clear: DOJ’s unlawful decision to rescind resources for organizations that specifically work to address and prevent hate crimes is intentional. And in the administration’s attempts to weaken civil rights and public safety, they have willfully ignored the authority of Congress to fuel their racist and xenophobic agenda.”

“We are committed to holding the administration accountable and ensuring that organizations nationwide can continue serving their communities,” he added.

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs said they “face the threat” of their canceled grant funding – which they appealed – going directly to law enforcement instead of the designed “collaboration” between community-based organizations and authorities.

On Tuesday, the plaintiffs requested a conference in anticipation of their intent to file a motion for a preliminary injunction. To the end of this anticipated motion, in their July 2 complaint, the plaintiffs argued they have suffered “irreparable harm” due to the termination of the grants.

The plaintiffs are proposing that, should U.S. Distrcit Judge Kiyo Matsumoto of the Eastern District of New York give them permission to file their motion, they be given two days to file, the defendants be given two weeks to respond, and they then have 10 days to reply to that.