Politics
Trump Administration Restores $1M in Frozen Anti-Terrorism Funds to Chicago, City Officials Announce
(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
The Trump administration restored more than $1 million in frozen anti-terrorism funds to Chicago after city lawyers sued, claiming the funds had been illegally withheld, Chicago officials told WTTW News.
City lawyers sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in May to force it to reimburse Chicago for what it had spent to prevent nuclear attacks and protect the city from terrorism and authorize new expenses. That suit was joined 10 days ago by Denver, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle.
Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry said the federal government gave the city no explanation for its decision to send millions of dollars to Chicago and other big cities that officials held in a deep freeze for nearly six months.
“We would like to think that our filing was so incredibly strong that it, in and of itself, prompted a reversed course,” Richardson Lowry said, laughing.
But it is more likely that President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel’s war with Iran prompted a reconsideration of the decision to freeze the funds, Richardson Lowry said.
A bulletin issued Monday by the Department of Homeland Security warned “the ongoing Iran conflict is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States” and “the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict could contribute to US-based individuals plotting additional attacks.”
Perhaps that warning “compelled them to revisit the notion of holding back funds that lend themselves to protecting citizenry throughout the United States,” Richardson Lowry said.
The bulk of the once-frozen money arrived Tuesday morning, said Steve Kane, the head of the Law Department’s Affirmative Litigation Division, which is charged with challenging “actions by the federal government that harm the city and its residents.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WTTW News.
Mayor Brandon Johnson called the Trump administration’s decision to stop grants from the Securing the Cities counterterrorism program from flowing to 13 big cities to help them prepare for nuclear or terrorist attacks “reckless.” The program started in New York in 2006 and expanded in 2018 after being approved by Congress.
Chicago and the other cities face an elevated risk of sustaining terrorist attacks, according to federal officials.
Richardson Lowry said the “safety and security” of Chicago residents and visitors would have been compromised had the Trump administration continued to withhold this funding.
“The notion that those funds were being held, and had been held since mid-February, was untenable and unsustainable, particularly for the third largest city in the nation,” Richardson Lowry said.
In all, the program sent $300 million to the nation’s largest cities between 2007 and 2023, or about $29 million annually, according to a March 2024 Government Accountability Office report.
The five cities used these funds during a November 2023 visit by President Joe Biden, an October 2024 rally held by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, and at the 2024 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, Chicago officials said.
Before February, federal officials typically reimbursed cities within 72 hours, officials said.
Once Trump returned to office, those reimbursement requests had been “effectively ignored” and federal officials told city leaders “that they must pause all radiological and nuclear detection equipment purchases,” officials said.
Trump has pledged to strip federal funding from cities like Chicago with laws on the books designed to protect undocumented immigrants. One of the first acts by Trump after taking office was to issue an executive order stripping self-proclaimed sanctuary cities of all federal funding. That order has been blocked by a federal judge.
Johnson said in April that those efforts amount to “terrorism” and vowed again to fight the federal government.
“Trying to force your will to break the spirit of working people in order to have a conversation, that’s terrorism,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to negotiate with terrorists.”
Chicago lawyers have brought more than 20 lawsuits against the Trump administration in an effort to stand up for Chicagoans’ rights, Richardson Lowry said, praising the work of Kane and the lawyers in his division.
City lawyers are waiting for a federal judge to rule on Chicago’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration that seeks to invalidate city and state laws that prohibit local and state law enforcement agents from helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deport undocumented residents unless they have been convicted of a crime.
Chicago expects to receive approximately $3.5 billion in new and existing federal grant money in 2025, officials said. The city’s 2025 budget is $17.1 billion.
In addition, the CTA expects to receive $1.9 billion from the federal government to extend the Red Line south to 130th Street, and CPS received $1.3 billion from the federal government during the 2024-25 academic year.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
