Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer announced that his office has taken two legal actions Friday against the Trump administration, including becoming the first jurisdiction in the country to challenge immigration-related conditions placed on a new Juvenile Gang Prevention Grant.
Feuer’s office also filed a motion seeking a permanent injunction to stop the administration from again imposing civil immigration conditions on a 2018 federal public safety grant used to fight gang violence.
The Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant has been the focus of numerous lawsuits filed by local jurisdictions, and Feuer’s office last month won a preliminary injunction against the administration over the 2017 version of the grant conditions.
“Los Angeles continues to be in the forefront in standing up to the Trump administration’s repeated efforts to hold federal public safety funding hostage by illegally imposing civil immigration enforcement conditions on local law enforcement,” Feuer said. “We will aggressively challenge administration policies that would undermine public safety in Los Angeles.”
Since 1997, the city of Los Angeles has received more than $1 million in JAG funding annually, including $1.8 million for the 2016 fiscal year.
On July 25, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that new immigration requirements would be placed on all Byrne JAG grant applications that would require jurisdictions to cooperate with federal immigration laws or they would be ineligible for funding, and as a result, Los Angeles has not received any 2017 funds from the grant.
The Los Angeles Police Department and Feuer’s office have said they will not comply with the grant’s requirements because the conditions go against longstanding city policies to limit cooperation with federal immigration laws.
In April, in an earlier action brought by the Feuer called City of Los Angeles v. Sessions, the U.S. District Court found that the DOJ’s imposition of similar immigration-related conditions for a discretionary community policing (COPS) grant were unlawful, and imposed a nation-wide injunction preventing the federal government from including the considerations in the COPS grant.
In a September motion, the city argued that precedent of the City of Los Angeles v. Sessions decision regarding the COPS grant supported the city’s claim that immigration-related conditions imposed on the Byrne JAG grant were also unlawful.
Feuer’s office said that the LAPD has also applied for funding from the DOJ’s Juvenile Gang Prevention Grant funds in order to support efforts to fight the MS-13 gang. The grant is a competitive grant and is being awarded for the first time, and Feuer’s office said it has amended an existing lawsuit against the administration to become the first jurisdiction in the country to challenge immigration-related conditions placed on it.
Sessions defended the new policies on the grants as necessary to help fight illegal immigration when he announced them in July 2017.
“So-called `sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes,” Sessions said at the time. “These policies also encourage illegal immigration and even human trafficking by perpetuating the lie that in certain cities, illegal aliens can live outside the law.”