Amid federal funding threats, Boston's Trust Act again under spotlight

Boston Globe

10-03-2025

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'If this funding is cut, it will have a severe impact on the operations of our Police Department,' said City Councilor Ed Flynn, one of several councilors who called for a hearing on the Boston Trust Act. 'We can't play politics with the public safety of our residents.'
Governor Maura Healey said separately the Trump administration's threat to withhold federal funding 'will hurt public safety and hurt law enforcement.'
'Cities and towns across Massachusetts rely on federal funding to keep their communities safe,' Healey said in a statement.
At issue is the city's Trust Act, which has been likened to what are known as 'sanctuary city' laws. Boston's ordinance generally —
Trump administration officials have called on cities such as Boston to do more to assist their efforts for mass deportations, under the threat of federal funding and even criminal and civil charges for public officials who interfere with those efforts.
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And following Wu's testimony on Wednesday, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released a
The vague threat of blocking federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions is not new — in fact the first Trump administration tried the same thing. Those effort mostly failed, as courts repeatedly blocked them on multiple grounds. In particular, the courts ruled it was unconstitutional for the administration to block all government dollars because of local policies on immigration, as the Constitution requires that such spending decisions be related to the policy at issue.
The one area where the administration had some limited success with the courts, though, was in law enforcement and public safety funding. Two federal appellate courts, including one that oversees Vermont, allowed the administration to place some requirements and incentives on Justice Department grant applications that penalized jurisdictions who failed to cooperate in some ways with federal immigration enforcement.
However, the appeals court that oversees Massachusetts and other New England states ruled that the funding cuts broke the law, leading to split decisions among appeals courts. The matter was never considered by the US Supreme Court because the Biden administration had reversed Trump's policy.
There are some ways that this Trump administration could get away with restricting funding, said Bill Ong Hing, a law professor at University of San Francisco who studies the issue. The policy could withstand court challenge if Congress deliberately passes legislation that authorizes some restrictions on public safety funding, and if the Justice Department takes the proper steps to modify the grant requirements and give local jurisdictions adequate notice and consideration under the new rules.
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'If they can get Congress to OK putting those conditions in and it's some grant that's associated with [immigration], I think that some court somewhere might go along with them,' Hing said. 'I think that's a gigantic if.'
Still, he said, the administration nor Congress would likely get away with blocking all funds to sanctuary cities, as that's widely been found to be unconstitutional.
'That's not going to work,' Hing said.
And Boston's policy of not collecting information on people's immigration status probably keeps them in compliance with a federal law requiring jurisdictions to turn over such information when asked. That law has in the past formed the basis of Trump's efforts to target sanctuary city funding.
'There's nothing in the law that says [cities] must ask about immigration status,' Hing said. 'If that's what the law said, then fine, but that's not what the law says.'
Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, also said any attempt to withhold federal funding for Boston would be met with a lawsuit that he predicted would be successful. But he told the Globe he wouldn't be surprised if the Trump administration still tried 'to engage in political theatrics.'
'It sounds like something that the crazies in the White House might want to do, but in practice, it becomes very legally questionable,' he said.
Still, the threat of funding cuts has thrown Boston's Trust Act into public debate, as it did during Wednesday's Capitol Hill hearing and again for a scheduled City Council meeting on Monday that is meant to 'audit the effectiveness' of the act.
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While federal grants are a small percentage of the Boston Police Department's $474 million budget, those funds pay for programs that Cox describes as vital: DNA testing to solve cold murder and rape cases, anti-gang and anti-terrorism intelligence and hardening against nuclear threats, among others.
Last year, the Department of Homeland Security awarded nearly $12 million in Urban Area Security Initiative funds to promote security in Greater Boston, according to the state Office of Grants and Research. About $1 million of that money went to the Boston Police Department and another $1.9 million went to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, which supports local anti-gang and counterterrorism operations.
'A substantial portion of our analytic capabilities are funded by the federal government through grants that are critical not only to public safety in Boston but to the entire Metro Boston region,' Cox
Federal funding also supports private nonprofits that city leaders have described as key partners in reducing violence. Community Development Block Grants, funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, support job training programs for youth and recently incarcerated people.
For Stone House, a domestic violence shelter in Roxbury, those block grants pay for financial literacy programs that help survivors live independently of their abusers. Federal dollars support efforts to help clients find jobs, build credit, budget for their households, and locate stable housing, according to Stone House's interim CEO Kathryn Fagan
'The loss of these funds would be devastating to our [domestic violence] clients and would set their goals of security and financial independence back immeasurably,' Fagan wrote in an email.
Another of those nonprofits is the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, which uses block grant funds to connect people returning from prison with job training, financial counseling, and stable housing, CEO Kimberly R. Lyle told the Globe.
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'If this funding were eliminated, it would directly impact those efforts, making it harder for people to successfully reintegrate into the community,' Lyle wrote in a statement. 'The bottom line is that cuts to federal funding wouldn't just affect DBEDC — they would have ripple effects across Boston, the state, and the nation, limiting economic mobility, job creation, and community stability."
Jim Puzzanghera of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Dan Glaun can be reached at