Trump Administration Funds Sanctuary Cities Despite Pledge, Angering Supporters

President Donald Trump repeatedly promised to stop giving federal money to cities that refuse to cooperate with U.S. agencies trying to enforce immigration law.

But his embattled homeland security secretary recently awarded nearly $1.7 billion in grants, some related to immigration, to states and localities across the nation, including so-called sanctuary cities, according to three people with knowledge of the grants.

Kirstjen Nielsen authorized the grants despite objections of her top staff — a decision that has angered supporters who trusted Trump to make good on his campaign pledge.

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Homeland Security officials said Tuesday that Nielson was bound by a nationwide court order that instructs the federal government not to withhold funding. Despite that, her top aides urged her in the day leading up to the awarding of the grants not to include the money for sanctuary cities, according to the three people, two of whom used to work at the department and remain in close contact with employees.

“This is typical of Nielsen,” one person said. “She is known for deliberately ignoring warnings that her decisions are not in keeping with the president’s agenda, but that she proceeds forcefully and simply misrepresents what she is doing.”

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The grant money, available annually, is essentially set aside for localities, who apply to Homeland Security to spend the money on specific expenses. If any localities were going to be excluded for being sanctuary cities or for other reasons, it would have been done so already, according to the three people.

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A series of lawsuits involving the funding of sanctuary cites are pending. So far, judges have disagreed on whether to allow the administration to withhold federal money. In March, a federal judge in Northern California allowed Trump to withhold grants. In April, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a nationwide injunction against cutting off grants to sanctuary cities. That ruling followed a separate California case that first issued a similar ban. The Trump administration is asking a court to overturn the nationwide injunction on grants.

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Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said proposals to exclude sanctuary cities from DOJ grants came from lawmakers, specifically Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee that controls the department’s budget.

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In one of his first acts as president, Trump signed an executive order that called for the DHS secretary and attorney general to use their discretion to ensure that jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal law are not eligible to receive grants. But the language was vague.

DHS announced the grants last week but did not respond last week to subsequent requests for comment from McClatchy. Department officials alerted members of Congress though, some of whom touted the money in statements.

Rep. Dan Donovan, a Republican from New York who attended Trump’s roundtable last week on immigration, said New York City will receive hundreds of millions of dollars to combat terrorism and other purposes. {snip}

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Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a policy group that seeks to reduce immigration, said he’s not surprised the administration hasn’t worked harder to defund sanctuary cities since several court cases are pending but, he said, it “does sound a bit like backing down.”

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