WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Justice Department is offering nearly $1 billion in public safety grants to cities and police departments across the U.S. Grant recipients are required to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agencies to qualify for funding.

The grant allocation includes $700 million for COPS grants, which fund hiring new officers, school safety programs, and police mental health resources. The department also allocated $300 million for the Model Cities Initiative, directing funds to mid-sized cities for public safety projects. Justice Department application guidelines state that Model Cities Initiative applicants failing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement will not receive funding.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said, "The strongest applications will not come from one office or one representative acting alone. They will come from jurisdictions that offer true partnership." The Justice Department issued a written statement asserting that the suggestion immigration is not linked to public safety is ludicrous. The department also noted that ICE has arrested hundreds of thousands of criminals.

This approach to grant funding has been used previously. The first Trump administration linked federal police grants to immigration enforcement cooperation, a policy that federal courts later challenged. The Biden administration then revoked those immigration-linked grant policies implemented during the first Trump administration.

Tahir Duckett, Director of the Center for Innovations in Community Safety at Georgetown University, said, "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." The Department of Homeland Security also offers financial incentives for local law enforcement agencies to assist with immigration enforcement.

Past administrations have prioritized different criteria for public safety grants. During the Obama administration, the department gave additional grant consideration to agencies focusing on community trust-building following the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. During the Biden administration, grant priority was given to cities implementing community-based violence intervention programs following the killing of George Floyd.