DOJ launched $300M Model Cities Initiative conditioning police grants on immigration enforcement cooperation and surveillance

On June 3, 2026, the Justice Department announced the Model Cities Initiative (MCI), a $300 million federal grant program directing funds to two to four cities selected to implement a "whole-of-city" approach to public safety. The program explicitly models itself on the Memphis surge — a 31-agency federal task force that blanketed Memphis streets with mass traffic stops, large-scale immigration arrests, and pervasive surveillance. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche described the initiative as "leveraging every authority" to extend the administration's enforcement model nationwide.

The grant conditions require participating cities to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement operations and to purchase a DOJ-specified surveillance technology package, including real-time crime centers, AI systems, license plate readers, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and counter-drone equipment. The program's structure gives DOJ discretion to select which two to four cities receive the concentrated funding, creating leverage over local officials who seek access to federal public-safety resources. Congress did not authorize the immigration enforcement cooperation or specific technology mandates as grant conditions.

The ACLU noted that the program builds on a 2025 pattern — documented by the centrist think tank Third Way — in which the administration imposed "sweeping new conditions on grants" unrelated to public safety, conditioning funding on cooperation with immigration enforcement, gender policy requirements, and vaccine policies. The MCI concentrates this coercive model by awarding large sums to a small number of hand-picked cities as a replicable demonstration of federal control over local policing.

Updates

2026-08-31 — New Orleans declined to apply, citing unresolved oversight and liability questions [3]

The City of New Orleans, under Mayor Helena Moreno, announced on August 31, 2026 — the day before the program's September 1 application deadline — that it would not apply for the grant. Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Michael Harrison cited unresolved questions about the scope of DOJ involvement in implementation, the city's potential financial liability for federal deployment costs, and requirements to align with the administration's immigration-enforcement and public-sleeping-ban priorities, saying "there are too many significant questions and legal issues that remain unresolved for the City to responsibly make the commitments required by the program."