A federal judge Thursday barred the U.S. Justice Department from giving priority status for multimillion-dollar community grants to police departments that cooperate with immigration officials.
The ruling was a win for the city of Los Angeles, which sued last October over the federal government’s new scoring system for a grant that the city has used for its Summer Night Lights and Fall Friday Nights programs. Those programs offer evening activities at parks as a deterrence against youth involvement in gangs. The city was awarded the grant, known as the COPS Hiring Program, in 2012 and 2016.
The lawsuit, filed by L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer, contended that the scoring system created an uneven playing field, and in the future would continue to give preferential treatment to cities that submit the certification, and disadvantage applicants that don’t.
“This is yet another dagger in the heart of the administration’s efforts to use federal funds as a weapon to make local jurisdictions complicit in its civil immigration enforcement policies,” Feuer said during a City Hall news conference Thursday.
The ruling will apply “nationwide” and prevent the Justice Department from employing the preferential scoring process in future application cycles, according to Feuer.
Feuer said that while the Justice Department can still appeal, he is “confident” in the city’s standing in the case.
The Justice Department did not immediately comment on the ruling, though U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions has said that cities that don’t help enforce immigration law are endangering public safety.
The federal COPS Hiring Program awards more than $98 million to police department across the U.S. to hire more officers for community policing.
In the 2017 grant application cycle, the Department of Justice included a scoring category that awarded points to cities that certify that they will provide at least 48 hours notice of release time of immigrants in custody, and give federal immigration officials access into detention facilities to ask immigrants, or those thought to be immigrants, about their immigration status. The city of Los Angeles did not submit this certification.
During this past application round, the city applied for a $3.125 million to hire officers for a “community safety partnership program” that serves at-risk youth and build relationships with members of the community at public housing developments. The city did not receive the grant, but the Department of Justice said Los Angeles would not have been awarded it even if it had submitted the certification to obtain the additional points.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, of the United States District Court Central District of California, said the conditions would “upset the constitutional balance” by forcing police to participate in immigration enforcement.
Los Angeles Police Department officials say that in order to keep Los Angeles safe, it needs the trust of its immigrant communities.
“This is a big victory,” said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who joined Feuer and Mayor Eric Garcetti at the news conference. Despite the Trump Administration’s threat of withholding federal funds to the city, the police department has held fast to “philosophies” around immigration issues “that have been in place for decades,” he said.
The legal victory shows “we won’t be bullied, and we can’t be bought,” he said.
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Beck said COPS grant funding can potentially pay for as many as 50 police officers. “That’s a considerable amount of cops,” he said.
Many cities across the country have implemented sanctuary city laws as a way to focus on local crime, rather than detaining people suspected of being in the country illegally.
Garcetti said that he will listen to his own police officers, over any advice by a “politician.”
“Quit politicizing public safety,” he said, directing his comment at the Trump Administration.
Beck and other city officials said the aim of their legal challenge was not to obtain the grant funding, but to ensure that the scoring system will no longer be used in the future.
“This is your money that is coming back to you to make your communities safer,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.