Watsonville prepares to respond to letter about losing DOJ grant money
UPDATE: 11/30/17 11:49 a.m. The City of Watsonville said it plans to respond to a letter sent from the US Department of Justice which states the Federal government may cut funds for police because Watsonville is a “sanctuary city.”
The DOJ sent the letter to Watsonville and 29 other jurisdictions. Several cities and the state of California are pushing back through legal action.
Recently a Federal judge in San Francisco issued a permanent injunction blocking Trump’s executive order seeking to strip so-called sanctuary cities of federal funding.
“The City of Watsonville is reviewing the most recent letter and will respond appropriately,” said city officials.
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Central Coast communities are at risk of losing key grant money if they don’t cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The city of Watsonville and Monterey County received the news in a letter from the Trump Administration. Both areas have until December 8 to respond to the letter.
On top of Monterey County and Watsonville that letter was sent out to twenty seven other jurisdictions that have sanctuary city policies. If they don’t respond, they’ll lose a grant that gives millions to local law enforcement.
It’s that very grant that the department of justice is using as leverage. That’s because the grant required them to comply with a law that keeps jurisdictions from keeping or sending immigration information about individuals to federal authorities.
County attorney, Charles McKee said, “Those are money to help law enforcement protect us here in Monterey County and we need to fight to make sure those monies keep coming.”
This letter comes just as Monterey County decided to support a law suit against the Department of Justice filed by the state of California.
The suit was a response to the DOJ’s threats to take grants away from sanctuary cities.
“The problem is that their interpretation of following federal law is different what mine would be as county counsel or the state attorney general for California,” McKee said.
