NEW YORK — The Trump administration opened a new front in what appears to be a financial assault on New York City over immigration and inclusion policies with an announcement Wednesday it is holding up $18 billion tied to two crucial infrastructure projects.

“Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” Russ Vought, President Trump’s controversial head of the Office of Management and Budget and co-author of Project 2025, tweeted Wednesday morning. “Specifically, the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Ave Subway,” Vought clarified in a subsequent tweet.

The move comes amid a bitter fight in Washington over the government shutdown and the day after Trump gutted critical funding for the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit in a move blasted by the department as “dangerous.” That funding cut was nominally over New York City’s sanctuary city immigration policies, which have been blasted by Trump as he pursues a crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

“If these cuts go through as planned, it will represent a devastating blow to our counterterrorism intelligence programs in New York City,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Wednesday. “New York City will not be a less safe place tomorrow as a result of all of this, but it will absolutely be a less safe place six months from now.”

The reasoning behind the freeze in transportation funds was likewise not related to the value of the projects themselves, but to a core Trump culture agenda item. In an unsigned statement issued by the US Department of Transportation, officials claimed the funding hold was over an “administrative review” to ensure that the Trump ban on “race- and sex-based contracting requirements” were being followed by both projects.

That ban, laid out in a so-called “interim final rule,” was only published by the federal government on Tuesday. It references one of several executive orders signed by Trump on his first day in office, specifically one entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.”

“The federal government wants to immediately ‘review’ our compliance with rules they told us about moments ago,” MTA’s head of policy and external relations, John McCarthy, said in a statement.

“It looks like they’re just inventing excuses to delay one of the most important infrastructure projects in America,” he added.

The unsigned USDOT statement also tied the funding pause to the ongoing government shutdown fight in Washington and Trump’s showdown with key Congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats.

“Thanks to the Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries shutdown, however, USDOT’s review of New York’s unconstitutional practices will take more time,” the DOT statement read, in a bolded section. “This is another unfortunate casualty of radical Democrats’ reckless decision to hold the federal government hostage to give illegal immigrants benefits.”

Jeffries, D-N-Y, the House minority leader, shot back at Vought, deriding him as a “poster child for privilege and mediocrity.”

“Cruelty is the point for the Republican Party,” Jeffries later told reporters at a press conference flanked by fellow House Democratic lawmakers. “They want to continue to hurt Americans.”

“In Donald Trump’s authoritarian America, even the trains won’t run on time,” Schumer tweeted.

Gov. Kathy Hochul likewise denounced the White House for what she called “an attack on New York and its residents.”

“Donald Trump … is intent on using his reckless government shutdown to hurt the American people,” Hochul said in a statement. “Every New Yorker should be outraged.”

“In just 24 hours, his administration has defunded New York’s law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts and halted $18 billion in funding from critical infrastructure projects in New York City,” she said. “(I)t puts every family across our state in harm’s way.”

The degree to which Vought can defund the projects critical to New York commuters was not immediately clear. Much of the federal government’s matching funding for both projects has already been committed, and contracts have been signed with the feds on both projects. Federal funding typically functions as reimbursements for money already spent on the project.

A source with knowledge of the Second Ave. Subway project told the Daily News that no reimbursements are currently expected by the MTA.

Another source with knowledge of the Hudson River Tunnel project — a part of the larger Gateway Development effort — said that an expected federal reimbursement due this month would likely be on hold, but work on the tunnel would continue regardless.

“GDC has received notification from FTA regarding a pause in disbursements for the Hudson Tunnel Project,” Tom Prendergast, head of the Gateway Development Commission, said in a statement. “GDC complies with all federal laws and regulations, and will continue to do so throughout the project.”

“We look forward to continuing our productive relationship with the Administration, FTA, FRA, and the US Department of Transportation,” he added. “In the meantime, we remain focused on keeping the project on scope, schedule, and budget.”

The funding hold was denounced by city officials as well. Will Fowler, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams, said the city was “reviewing its options.”

“Though these are not city-managed projects, the Hudson Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway extension provide good-paying union jobs to New Yorkers who are building infrastructure to transport working-class New Yorkers to their jobs — that is ultimately who will pay for this unnecessary action by the federal administration,” he said.

City Council member Selvina Brooks-Powers, a Democrat from Queens and chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, blasted the Trump administration Wednesday.

“These aren’t abstract infrastructure projects, they are lifelines for millions of commuters and economic engines for the entire Northeast,” she said in a statement. “Let’s be absolutely clear: equitable public investment is not unconstitutional. It is essential to correcting decades of systemic exclusion and ensuring taxpayer dollars are used to lift all communities, especially those historically left out.”

Federal dollars are expected to pick up $3.4 billion of the tab on phase two of the MTA’s Second Avenue Subway, which would restore rapid transit service into East Harlem for the first time in more than 75 years.

The Hudson River Tunnel project — which aims to open two new commuter rail tunnels between New Jersey and Penn Station as part of a wide-ranging effort to improve capacity at the nation’s busiest train station — is also reliant on federal agreements that have already been signed.

The feds committed $6.9 billion to much fanfare in July 2024, on top of $3.8 billion in federal funding from the Department of Transportation’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program, and $2 billion in federal dollars fronted by Amtrak, which would controls the rails set to run through the tunnel.

In August, federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy joked about putting Trump’s name on Penn Station while lauding the administration’s efforts to overhaul the station — a project that is, in part, reliant on a new tunnel under the Hudson.

The $18 billion price tag floated by Vought is not the federal expenditure on both projects, but rather the total cost including state money and federal loans that are due to be paid back by the states.

Wednesday’s declaration is the latest in a long line of threats to New York City’s transit funding leveled by the regime, over a wide range of supposed issues. Duffy threatened to defund the New York City subway system in August over worker safety issues following an FTA report on track safety.

That threat came after he said he’d defund city transit following a two-stop ride on the B train in March, after which he said he was convinced the system was crime ridden. There is ample evidence, however, crime is down in the subways.

Duffy has also threatened to pull transit funding over the state’s congestion pricing program so many times that, in May, a federal judge had to order him to stop.

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