The Justice Department is linking public safety money to immigration enforcement [View all]
Source: NPR
Updated June 22, 20265:00 AM ET
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.
"They are trying to take dollars that local agencies have been depending on for years and saying, 'Oh, well, if you want these dollars, then you need to help us out with our immigration enforcement work," says Tahir Duckett, executive director of the Center for Innovations in Community Safety at Georgetown Law.
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.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/18/nx-s1-5854955/the-doj-is-doling-out-local-police-grants-with-a-catch
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