Trump Says Funding Will Be Cut Off From Sanctuary Cities as East Lansing Remains Lone Michigan City on DOJ List
Speaking in Detroit on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the federal government will stop making payments to sanctuary jurisdictions starting Feb. 1.
East Lansing is the only Michigan city on a Department of Justice list of sanctuary jurisdictions, which has raised questions about if East Lansing should repeal the resolution declaring it a sanctuary city. In response to an email from East Lansing Info asking if the city is considering changes to the sanctuary city resolution after Trump’s comments, Mayor Erik Altmann declined to comment.
“We’re aware of this development but I can’t comment at this time,” he wrote.
City Manager Robert Belleman told ELi in an email Wednesday morning he is concerned about Trump’s comments.
“I just learned of President Trump’s statement about discontinuation of revenue to Sanctuary Cities starting February 1st,” Belleman wrote. “I will be looking into the statement and its possible impact on the city of East Lansing. I am always concerned about the loss of revenue to the city.”
This is not the first time Trump has threatened to strip funding from sanctuary cities. Previous attempts to defund sanctuary cities by the current Trump administration and during his first term have been blocked by courts, according to the Associated Press.
The City Council voted to declare East Lansing a sanctuary city in 2023, aiming to make the city more welcoming to the immigrant community.
In an interview with ELi early last year, David Thronson, a law professor at Michigan State University explained that there is no legal definition of a sanctuary city and sanctuary jurisdictions have different resolutions defining their status. He highlighted that the East Lansing resolution says “in a manner consistent with State and Federal law” East Lansing officials and law enforcement officers will not collaborate with federal agents solely to enforce immigration law.
“It’s really just saying we’re going to choose not to expend our resources to assist in this federal responsibility of enforcing and administering immigration law,” Thronson said.
Last year, ELi obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act request showing correspondence between U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and then-East Lansing Mayor George Brookover regarding East Lansing’s sanctuary city status.
“This ends now,” Bondi wrote Brookover on Aug. 13, saying that East Lansing has been identified as a local government that violates federal immigration laws or “thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States.”
Brookover responded in a letter dated Aug. 18, saying the city’s resolution does not violate the federal laws Bondi mentioned in her letter.
“After speaking with our city manager and police chief I also can confirm that we are unaware of any specific action by a city employee or law-enforcement official that has in fact impeded or thwarted federal immigration enforcement in the City of East Lansing, nor is there an intent to do so,” Brookover wrote.
“I therefore respectfully request that you remove the City of East Lansing from the list referenced in your letter.”
East Lansing was still included in the DOJ’s list of sanctuary cities published in late October, months after Brookover and Bondi’s correspondence.
The renewed threats from Trump come during a time of heightened outrage over immigration enforcement, after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agent shot and killed a Minneapolis woman last week.
On Jan. 9, two days after the Minneapolis shooting, hundreds of East Lansing High School students participated in a walkout protest of ICE actions, with several students holding anti-ICE signs.
At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, held hours after Trump made his comments in Detroit, council did not directly address the city’s sanctuary city status or Trump’s comments. Councilmember Mark Meadows did make a brief nod to an anti-ICE slogan by saying “Be Good” during his communications portion of the meeting, a reference to pins worn by Golden Globes attendees honoring Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman killed by ICE.