The Justice Department is offering nearly $1 billion in federal public safety grants for cities and police departments across the country. But the grants, announced this month, come with a catch: Local officials have to be willing to work with federal immigration officers.
The move is part of a larger push from the Trump administration to entice cities and their police forces to work more closely with federal immigration officers, a shift officials at the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security have been quietly making in the aftermath of the highly visible — and highly unpopular — immigration enforcement surges in cities like Minneapolis and Chicago in recent months.
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About $700 million of the grant money comes from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services within the DOJ. These funding opportunities, known as COPS grants, have existed since 1994. Historically, they are one of the largest sources of federal funding for local police. In the last three decades, COPS grants have sent more than $20 billion to cities across the country.
Much of that money has traditionally gone toward hiring new police officers, but it can also support school safety programs, mental health services for police officers and other initiatives.
A second set of funds, called the Model Cities Initiative, is new and comes from last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President Trump’s massive tax and spending law. That grant money, once awarded, can be used for things like increasing police presence in high crime areas or purchasing new technology, like drones and AI. It will amount to about $300 million and will be awarded to two to four midsize cities.
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For the Model Cities Initiative, the DOJ says agency leadership will review each application and publish a list of finalists who will be invited to make a presentation to agency leadership.
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In the grant materials for the Model Cities Initiative, the DOJ says any program or activity that “impedes or hinders” the enforcement of federal immigration law, including by failing to honor DHS requests, will not be funded.
In announcing the new batch of COPS grants, the DOJ included a similar stipulation, indicating that “priority consideration” will be given to cities and counties that cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
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The first Trump administration also linked some grants to immigration enforcement, though that was challenged in court and ultimately revoked by the Biden administration.
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The post The Justice Department Is Linking Public Safety Money to Immigration Enforcement appeared first on American Renaissance.
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