A federal judge has determined that the Trump administration illegally dismantled a FEMA grant initiative aimed at mitigating the impact of natural disasters.

According to U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program represents FEMA’s most extensive pre-disaster mitigation effort. Stearns highlighted in his 19-page decision that Congress allocates funds to this program, emphasizing that FEMA must not significantly compromise its fundamental duty of mitigation.

This legal battle delves into the separation of powers, with Stearns asserting that it is the executive branch that has overstepped its boundaries.

“In essence, this matter does not concern the judiciary overstepping into the Executive Branch’s discretionary powers,” remarked Stearns, a Bill Clinton appointee. “Rather, it addresses the unlawful Executive infringement on Congress’s authority to allocate funds for a designated and crucial purpose, nothing more, nothing less.”

In April, FEMA’s head declared the termination of the BRIC program. This decision prompted twenty states to file a lawsuit in July against FEMA and its overseer, the Department of Homeland Security. The states accused them of breaching the Administrative Procedure Act and several constitutional provisions.

As of Thursday”s order, no awarded grants had officially been terminated by FEMA.

While the Trump administration made the procedural argument that BRIC has not actually been terminated and thus the “States’ claims depend on a contingent future event,” Stearns found this argument unavailing.

“[T]he evidence in the record indicates that the decision to end the program has, for all practical purposes, been made,” he writes. “That FEMA has yet to formally terminate any already-awarded grants does not convince the court that the program’s future status remains up in the air.”

The federal government has also argued that the states “have not suffered any actual injury because they are not entitled” to the funding. However, once again, the judge batted down this line of thinking.

“[T]his is not literally true,” he writes, pointing to two pieces of legislation that “guarantee each State” a “threshold of mitigation funding each fiscal year.” Stearns goes on: “Thus, while FEMA has discretion whether to award funding for any single grant, it lacks discretion to refuse to award any funds to selected grants in a given fiscal year.”

The Trump administration appears to be planning on redirecting funds from the preventative BRIC program to reactive programs meant to deal with natural disasters after they’ve struck, according to the Boston-based jurist. Such an action is “unlawful.”

Stearns subsequently scolded the administration for its behavior, suggesting “bureaucratic obstruction” should not stand in the way of saving lives.

“The BRIC program is designed to protect against natural disasters and save lives,” he writes. “It need not be gainsaid that the imminence of disasters is not deterred by bureaucratic obstruction.”

“Any potential hardship to the Government, in contrast, is minimal,” he goes on. “The States do not ask the court to compel the agency to award any specific grants, nor do they ask the court to enjoin the agency from replacing the BRIC program in the future with a different mitigation program. Nor do they seek to prevent the Secretary of Homeland Security, as the overseeing executive of FEMA, from recommending to Congress that the BRIC program be abolished. The States’ requested relief is to enjoin the cancellation of the BRIC program as it is currently constituted by an act of Congress.”

As a result of Stearns’ order, FEMA must take all steps to ensure BRIC is in place as Congress intended.

The Department of Homeland Security, though, still maintains that it did not terminate the program, stating in comments to Reuters that “any suggestion to the contrary is a lie.”