The CTA and Metra have been awarded federal counterterrorism grants that could require them to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, although it’s unclear if the agencies plan to take the money.
The grants, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are used by mass transit agencies around the country to fund security and counterterrorism measures.
But transit agencies that accept the funds this year could be agreeing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement operations down the road. The decision that the CTA and Metra must make comes as Chicago finds itself in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which earlier this year updated its grant terms and conditions to include provisions requiring cooperation with immigration enforcement.
Illinois and a coalition of other states sued over those grant terms and won a permanent injunction in their favor last week.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit won’t be subject to the grant’s immigration conditions while the injunction is in place, according to FEMA documents. However, the terms would apply immediately should the injunction be stayed or vacated, the documents say.
In previous years, the CTA has received funds from the Transit Security Grant Program for projects including video monitoring of train stations and “collaboration” with Chicago police, including canine units, according to the agency’s most recent budget.
The CTA was allocated $15.7 million in transit security money this year, spokesperson Manny Gonzales confirmed. The region’s commuter rail system, Metra, received a grant of about $688,000, said agency spokesperson Michael Gillis.
Gillis said Metra was still deciding whether or not to take the grant, which would be used by the Metra Police Department to test out the use of drones to respond to threats and emergencies, he said.
The CTA would not say whether it planned to accept the money or what it would be used for.
“CTA can confirm that it has received an Award Letter for the Department of Homeland Security’s Transit Security Grant in the amount of $15.7 million,” Gonzales said in an email. “CTA has 30 days from receipt to respond.”
The immigration-related conditions laid out by DHS state that grant recipients must “honor requests for cooperation, such as participation in joint operations, sharing of information, or requests for short term detention of an alien pursuant to a valid detainer.”
They must also agree not to “leak or otherwise publicize” immigration enforcement operations.
The lawsuit filed by Illinois alleged those conditions are unconstitutional and accused the federal government of operating a “grant funding hostage scheme” and “hanging a halt in this critical funding over States like a sword of Damocles.”
Last week, a federal judge in Rhode Island agreed.
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The judge, William E. Smith, wrote in a Sept. 24 decision that the immigration conditions were ambiguous, coercive and not sufficiently related to the purpose of the grants at hand.
“DHS justifies the conditions by pointing to its broad homeland security mission, but the grants at issue fund programs such as disaster relief, fire safety, dam safety, and emergency preparedness,” Smith wrote. “Sweeping immigration-related conditions imposed on every DHS-administered grant, regardless of statutory purpose, lack the necessary tailoring.”
Legal experts said transit agencies will need to weigh uncertainty — both legal and political — when deciding whether or not to risk taking the money.
“There needs to be a relationship between the funding target and the regulation,” said Christopher Schmidt, a law professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
But there is not a lot of case law, experts said, regarding how tight that connection needs to be.
And the feds will likely appeal, Schmidt said. “I don’t think (Trump) wants to back off on this,” he said.
“A sincere appellate court would struggle with this question,” said Paul Gowder, a law professor at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law. “They could come down either way.”
FEMA and DHS did not answer a question about whether or not they will appeal the ruling.
In an email, a FEMA spokesperson said a “rogue judge” had “slammed the brakes” on the agency’s “commonsense reforms.” The agency said the ruling would leave “our nation vulnerable to mass illegal immigration, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, surging antisemitism, and violent left-wing radicals.”
“For too long, FEMA’s programs have strayed from their core mission turning taxpayer money into a slush fund for woke projects based on outdated and flawed methodologies,” FEMA said. “That ends now.”
While Chicago’s transit agencies are weighing the legal and political risks of taking the FEMA money, New York is suing the agency over allegations that funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was illegally withheld because of its sanctuary policies.
The MTA was eligible for the largest grant under the program this year, which would have been worth nearly $34 million.
The FEMA documents detailing this year’s award amounts were published as exhibits in New York’s lawsuit against FEMA. In its lawsuit, the New York attorney general’s office said it was sent the document and that it “appears to be a genuine document prepared and presented to Congressional staff by FEMA.”
The documents state that the MTA’s funding was zeroed out “because it is based in a Sanctuary Jurisdiction.”
It is not clear why the MTA received no funding while other agencies based in sanctuary jurisdictions, including Chicago, did. The agency documents say that “funding has been distributed to compliant jurisdictions.”
This week, New York won a restraining order that temporarily blocks the federal government from disbursing the funds that would have gone to the MTA under the program.
FEMA and DHS did not respond to a request for comment on New York’s lawsuit.
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The funding chaos comes as the Trump administration has threatened the CTA with the loss of federal funding unless they address safety and crime to the administration’s satisfaction.
Last month, Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, sent letters detailing the administration’s concerns to the leaders of the CTA and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston. The CTA said at the time that it would respond to Duffy’s letter as requested.
Meanwhile, the agency is facing the possibility of a massive budget gap next year that could force it to make drastic cuts to bus and train service — another factor it must weigh as it decides whether or not to pass up millions in federal funding.