DENVER (KDVR) — The city and county of Denver have joined Chicago, New York, Boston and others in a lawsuit against the Trump administration for allegedly imposing illegal conditions on grant funding.
Denver said the new lawsuit aims to prevent the US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency from requiring compliance with the current administration’s position on diversity, equity and inclusion to obtain grant funding.
“President Trump is threatening to strip cities of critical funding for everything from fighting fires to protecting concertgoers at Red Rocks from dangerous threats,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in a statement. “These grants have nothing to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion and everything to do with this administration’s goal of bringing politics where no one belongs, and we will continue to fight for services that Denverites are entitled to as taxpayers.”
One of President Donald Trump’s leading initiatives after taking office was against DEI, as he signed a series of executive orders during his first week in office to prevent the practice in federal programs.
Denver sued the Trump administration in June after funding for the Securing Our Cities program was halted. The program represents an attempt to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks in high-risk urban areas.
Denver said Tuesday that after filing a lawsuit in June, promised funding for the Securing Our Cities program has been restored.
“However, DHS later clarified that future reimbursements would be conditional on signing the Trump administration’s DEI directives. Denver has declined to do so,” the city wrote in its announcement.
In the lawsuit, the cities argue that the federal government’s conditions for receiving the funds are “vague, subjective, and vaguely broad, and that the executive’s imposition of conditions on plaintiffs’ grants disturbs the separation of powers, exceeds the federal government’s authority to place conditions on federal funding, and violates fundamental limits on how federal agencies think, reach, and implement decisions.”
Denver noted in the lawsuit that its Office of Emergency Management regularly hosts training for regional partners and applies for funding on behalf of its regional partners from federal programs.
“If Denver were forced to choose to forgo DHS and FEMA funding, the impact of the loss of these funds would ripple into other jurisdictions in the Denver Metropolitan Statistical Area and undermine emergency preparedness for more than 2 million people,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit states that the federal grant programs in question include:
- Emergency Management Performance Grant Program
- Homeland Security Grant Program, including the State Homeland Security Program and
- Urban Security Initiative
- Firefighter Assistance Grant Program
- Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program, including the Hazard Mitigation Grant and Flood Mitigation Assistance Program
- Port Security Scholarship Program
- Proper staffing of fire and emergency response
- Fire prevention and safety grants
- Transit Security Grant Program
According to the lawsuit, Colorado has applied for and is set to receive $5.72 million from FEMA for the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, $4.4 million in funding for the state’s Homeland Security Program, and a total of $9.8 million in Urban Security Initiative funding, of which FEMA has allocated $6.9 million to the urban area funded by Denver-Aurora-Lakewood.
Denver has also reportedly applied for an Urban Security Initiative grant, with $581,000 in staffing for fire and emergency response funds, and $1.9 million in DHS Counter-WMD grant funding.
The city also filed a lawsuit in May over FEMA grant funding, which allocated millions to migrant shelters in Denver where busloads of migrants were sent to Denver.