By Staff Reporter |
The city of Tucson won’t be adhering to the immigration enforcement conditions attached to the $4.2 million federal grant for law enforcement.
Tucson City Council voted unanimously to accept the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Technology and Equipment Program grant last week after Roi Lusk, the city attorney, advised the council that the city was free to ignore the immigration enforcement conditions.
Conditions of acceptance of the $4.2 million included the requirements that the city not interfere with governmental information exchange on citizenship status. It also required the city to not operate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Lusk based his analysis on a federal ruling in the District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued earlier that day. The ruling barred the federal government from requiring immigration enforcement as a condition of receiving public safety grants.
Chief Judge John McConnell declared that the DOJ lacked the authority to add its own conditions onto the existing grant structure established by Congress.
“The law in this circuit is clear that Congress’s decision to impose a formula structure on a grant program constrains DOJ’s authority to add the immigration enforcement conditions at issue here,” said McConnell.
Tucson’s city attorney shared that the city is involved in four separation lawsuits with federal agencies across multiple jurisdictions across the country concerning the immigration enforcement requirements. In all four of those lawsuits, courts have enjoined the immigration enforcement conditions.
“In order to get a federal injunction, you have to sort of prove your case already,” said Lusk. “In every single one of these cases, the court has sided with [us] the cities and [they] find that we would likely prevail in court at trial.”
Tim Thomure, city manager, explained to the council that the city had requested the grant from the federal government to replace police vehicles and motorcycles. The city remains in active litigation with the federal government to divorce this grant money from the immigration enforcement requirement.
“We’ve been battling this for two years now and counting,” said Thomure.
Even if a court were to rule in the future in the federal government’s favor to require immigration enforcement as a condition of funds acceptance, Lusk said the city wouldn’t have to return any funds spent regardless of nonfulfillment of immigration enforcement.
“Our acceptance of the grant after we’ve already performed would prevent the federal government from enforcing it against us because we’ve already performed under the accepted conditions, and not under the unaccepted conditions,” said Lusk. “There have been dozens of federal grants that we’ve accepted, hundreds of millions of dollars and dozens of grants that we’ve accepted under these conditions and in each one of them we’ve filed the same type of cover letter indicating that those conditions are currently enjoined and that’s been approved by our litigation partners and the federal courts themselves.”
Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined several multi-state lawsuits challenging similar grant funding requirements centered on mandated immigration enforcement or limitations to grant spending on illegal aliens since President Donald Trump took office last year.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
