Police may lose grant based on Trump policies

Posted 8/9/18

Col. Stephen McCartney has no issue with his department cooperating with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when it comes to individuals involved in criminal activities, but the department doesn't become involved in civil detainees nor does he

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Police may lose grant based on Trump policies

Posted

Col. Stephen McCartney has no issue with his department cooperating with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when it comes to individuals involved in criminal activities, but the department doesn’t become involved in civil detainees nor does he believe they should.

Now with President Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants, the chief is faced with a dilemma. The city could lose about $17,000 in federal grants if it doesn’t comply with immigration-related conditions. The city’s options at this point are to agree to the conditions, or as Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin did Tuesday, file suit against the Trump administration to block its efforts to punish jurisdictions that did not agree with the policy. Kilmartin is a member of a coalition of seven Attorneys General that filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Attorneys General argue that the Trump administration’s conditions on the grants interfere with the right of states and localities to set their own law enforcement policies, and that the Department of Justice lacks the authority to impose these new conditions. 

“I have been working and continue to work closely with my colleagues across the country to challenge this Administration’s overly harsh and at times, unrealistic, actions on immigration, and this threat to withhold federal funds from municipalities working to protect immigrants is certainly one of them. While there are issues surrounding current policies that should be addressed, immigrants living in Rhode Island deserve to be treated with basic dignity and respect, despite these scare tactics over funding,” Kilmartin said in a release.

 The suit was led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood and filed by the Attorneys General of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington.

As a result of the Trump administration’s actions, Rhode Island alone could lose approximately $767,000 in Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne-JAG) funds for Fiscal Year 2017; the seven states that sued could lose a total of nearly $25 million.

McCartney said Warwick receives about $25,000 of the state grant. In addition, it gets an additional $17,000 with a “pass through” grant.

The chief said the money is important to his budget and he doesn’t want to lose either of the grants. He suggested Warwick might be able to join other municipalities in a suit similar to that brought by the state. No decision had been made as of Tuesday.

McCartney said the city is faced with a Friday deadline to accept conditions of the grant. 

In July 2017, DOJ announced that it was imposing new immigration-related conditions on recipients of Byrne-JAG funding, and threatened to withhold funds from jurisdictions that did not comply with these conditions. Rhode Island received a request for certification as to the Trump administration’s new grant conditions, which require state and local governments to participate in the federal government’s mandates by providing the Department of Homeland Security with advance notice of an immigrant’s scheduled release date from a correctional facility; granting federal agents access to correctional facilities to question immigrants; and reporting on and certifying state and local compliance with DOJ’s new and expansive interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1373 – a federal information-sharing law. 

Federal law permits states and localities to limit their voluntary involvement with enforcing federal immigration policy, and many have done so because they have concluded that fostering a relationship of trust between their law-enforcement officials and their immigrant communities will promote public safety.

The Attorneys General argue, the new conditions violate the law, including the following claims:

l DOJ’s imposition of the new conditions violates separation of powers because DOJ lacks authority to impose the new conditions under the Byrne JAG statute and other federal law.

l DOJ’s imposition of the new conditions violates the Administrative Procedures Act because it is not in accordance with the law and is arbitrary and capricious.

l DOJ’s imposition of the information-sharing condition violates the Tenth Amendment because it requires states and localities to comply with DOJ’s expansive and unconstitutional interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1373.

The Byrne-JAG program is a federal grant program that provides grants to states and localities according to a mandatory statutory formula. Congress designed Byrne-JAG to give states and localities a reliable source of law-enforcement funding, while also giving them maximum flexibility to decide how to use the funds in accordance with state and local law-enforcement policy. DOJ, which administers the grants, is required by law to issue grants in accordance with a mandatory formula set forth in the Byrne-JAG statute.

Of the total amount appropriated by Congress, 50 percent of the funds are allocated based on each state’s population and fifty percent based on each state’s crime rate. Each state must receive at least one-quarter of one percent of the funds appropriated by Congress for a given year, regardless of what the formula would otherwise dictate. Between a state and its localities, sixty percent of funding shall be for direct grants to states, and 40 percent shall be for grants directly to localities (compared within a state based on crime rate).

The states involved in this lawsuit have received law-enforcement grants under the Byrne-JAG program previously and they have used those funds to support a broad array of critical-law enforcement programs tailored to local needs, including to support community-based policing, and reduce sexual assault, elder abuse, gun violence, recidivism, and drug addiction. Without Byrne-JAG funding, Rhode Island may be forced to cut funding to these critical state and local programs.

Comments

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  • davebarry109

    Does anyone besides me get irked by the Att Gen Kilmartin talking about protecting 'immigrants'. They are illegal immigrants. We are in bizarro land wherein the top law enforcement officer in the state is protecting law breakers. Yikes.

    Thursday, August 9, 2018 Report this

  • JohnStark

    We are told repeatedly by the left that "America is a country of immigrants." Fine. Then let us return to the process by which our grandparents entered the country. 1. They had to undergo a physical exam. Contagious and even non-contagious disease carriers were sent home. 2. You were required to have a sponsor. Those without sponsorship were sent back. 3. You were required to sign a form confirming that you would never seek public assistance. No form, no entry. What was not required, but broadly accepted, was the notion that you would embrace American ideals and culture as your own. English was spoken in school, and the burning of American flags was unheard of and would have been treated swiftly and harshly by fellow immigrants. What was once a privilege is now treated as yet another entitlement. All while we do an abhorrent job of teaching any of these truths to our children for fear of undermining the hip and mindless concepts of "tolerance" and "compassion".

    Thursday, August 9, 2018 Report this

  • PaulHuff

    This article should read “Police lose grant for failure to cooperate with Feds on immigration”.

    It’s grant money, nobody is entitled to it and if you don’t want to comply with the requirements then you don’t get any money.

    Pretty simple.

    Thursday, August 9, 2018 Report this

  • wwkvoter

    JohnStark, great comment. Spot on. It's just that simple. And LOTS of immigration would still occur under such a legal and orderly system, because our birth rate is low enough. What i don't understand is this crazy "open borders" mentality. Just bizarre to me.

    Friday, August 10, 2018 Report this