Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday that New York is planning to seek damages from the Trump administration for blocking state residents from certain federal travel programs, saying the decision affected the state’s economy and worsened the spread of COVID-19.
Cuomo, at a press briefing in Albany, railed against a pair of Trump administration officials after the federal government dropped its defense of the decision this week.
"You can't play politics with government,” Cuomo said. “It is illegal, what they did,"
The claims were targeted at acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and top agency official Ken Cuccinelli, both of which were part of the decision to block New York residents from participating in certain federal travel programs.
Those programs, the Trusted Traveler Program and Global Entry, allow individuals to more easily pass through security at airports and national borders. They’re designed to make the process faster by pre-checking travelers.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration blocked New York residents from applying to those programs, saying they couldn’t be properly vetted by the federal government.
That’s because, they claimed, New York had approved a law that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and, in turn, blocked federal immigration agencies from accessing the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles database.
In April, Cuomo and the state Legislature amended the law to allow the federal government to access DMV records, but only for individuals applying to the TTP and Global Entry. The federal government, however, did not restore the ability of New Yorkers to apply at the time.
The Trump administration, this week, dropped its claims against New York, saying the state’s laws now largely mirrored similar programs for undocumented immigrants in other states. That made the sanctions against residents of New York moot.
"Everybody knew there were other states with Green Light laws,” Cuomo said. “What happened yesterday is that they got caught."
Cuomo is now seeking retribution, saying the Trump administration unlawfully sanctioned New York for a number of months without any reason for doing so. He’s seeking action through a few different avenues, both at the federal and state levels.
For one, Cuomo wants Congress to open an investigation into the decision. He called on Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, to pursue a probe with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-MS, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee.
He also called on U.S. Attorney General William Barr to launch an investigation, though that’s unlikely given that Barr is a key Trump ally. Cuomo said there’s evidence that criminal charges could be brought against Wolf and Cuccinelli over the decision.
New York state will also pursue legal action against the federal government for damages, Cuomo said. Those haven’t been quantified, but Cuomo pointed to harm done to the state’s economy by clogging up points of entry.
He also claimed that, because more New Yorkers were denied entry to the travel programs, the federal government could be responsible for making the COVID-19 crisis worse in the Empire State.
Cuomo’s rationale is two-fold. He’s argued, several times, that New York’s COVID-19 crisis was the result of travel from Europe, where the virus had already exploded. That, coupled with longer, slower, and denser lines at airports, could have led to more spread, he claimed.
“You backed up the airports because you were playing political games with the Trusted Traveler Program,” Cuomo said. “How much of a factor is that? I don’t know.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Cuomo’s claims.