Opposing Unconstitutional Requirements Placed on COPS Hiring Program Grants and Urging the Immediate Opening of the Fiscal Year 2018 COPS Hiring Program
Adopted at the 86th Annual Meeting in 2018
WHEREAS, since Congress established the COPS Office in 1994, the agency has invested more than $14 billion to advance community policing, including hiring grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of approximately 130,000 officers; and
WHEREAS, U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, of the United States District Court Central District of California, issued a nationwide injunction on the "priority considerations"? for jurisdictions that "cooperate"? with DHS to enforce civil immigration laws. In his ruling, Judge Real said the conditions would "upset the constitutional balance"? by forcing the police to participate in immigration enforcement; and
WHEREAS, the Department of Justice has announced "the opening of the COPS Hiring Program (CHP) grant solicitation is on hold due to the issuance of a nationwide injunction by a U.S. District Court on April 12, 2018, regarding immigration factors that were included in the 2017 CHP solicitation. The Department has appealed this decision. CHP will remain on hold until further notice;"? and
WHEREAS, CHP is a critical funding source to help local law enforcement combat violent crime by adding additional police officers to our nation's streets.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that The U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the President of the United States and the Department of Justice to stop making unconstitutional funding threats to state and local governments in an effort to coerce and compel them into implementing federal immigration law, to cease the unconstitutionally broad interpretation of 8 U.S.C. §1373, a federal statute that bars restrictions on federal-local sharing of immigration status information, to stop issuing immigration detainer requests without probable cause and a warrant, and to immediately open the Fiscal Year 2018 COPS Hiring Program; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The U.S. Conference of Mayors commends the ruling by U.S. District Judge Real issuing a nationwide injunction and preventing the U.S. Department of Justice from imposing new conditions on a federal grant that provides critical crime prevention funds for community policing efforts and urges the Department to open the program immediately.