TUCSON, Arizona — The Tucson City Council voted 6-0 on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, to accept a $4.2 million U.S. Department of Justice grant for the Tucson Police Department — while formally stating that the city is NOT accepting four of the federal conditions attached to the money, including Condition 2, which would require compliance with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, the federal law that bars local governments from restricting officials from sharing citizenship or immigration-status information with the Department of Homeland Security.

Source: Tucson Daily Brief

Council Member Paul Cunningham was absent and excused, and Council Member Nikki Lee attended remotely. The award, from the Justice Department's fiscal 2026 Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Technology and Equipment Program, had been placed on the consent agenda but was pulled for separate discussion after a member of the public objected to the immigration-data condition during the call to the audience.

The speaker told the council she understood the grant carried a condition that would bar Tucson from prohibiting the sharing of immigration or citizenship data with DHS, and argued that if the city rejected the condition and later lost in court, it could still be required to hand over data. She added that she and many in the community opposed adding $4 million to law enforcement funding.

What the city attorney told the council

City Attorney Roi Lusk told the council the city was aware of conditions 2, 3, 4 and 12 of the award agreement. 'So those conditions don't apply as part of our acceptance,' Lusk said, explaining that Tucson is accepting the agreement but not those conditions, and that with every such award the city files a supplemental statement noting that it is in active litigation with the federal government.

Source: Tucson Daily Brief

Besides the immigration condition, the rejected conditions are a civil-rights certification covering diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a requirement to comply with all presidential memoranda and executive orders, and a clause governing when the COPS Office may terminate funding. Lusk rejected the claim that Tucson would have to comply if it lost in court: he said the city's acceptance states that the conditions, if later found enforceable, will not apply retroactively.

Lusk said Tucson is a party to four separate lawsuits against federal agencies over the same conditions, alongside jurisdictions including San Francisco, New York and Chicago, and that courts in every case have found the cities likely to prevail. Asked by Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz whether the city could ever be forced to return the money, Lusk said no, because the city will already have performed under the conditions it accepted — and he noted Tucson has accepted dozens of federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars with the same cover letter.

Where the $4.2 million goes

City Manager Timothy Thomure said the money will replace existing police vehicles and motorcycles and will not pay for other technology; the staff report for the item adds that the award will also buy a Mobile Command Unit, an addition to the fleet, for the department's Place-Network Investigation pilot. Thomure said the city had requested the money from the federal government as member-directed funds for that purpose, and that the city has been fighting the conditions attached to federal grants for two years.

Mayor Regina Romero noted that member-directed funds are chosen by members of Congress from requests the city submits. Rep. Juan Ciscomani's office listed $4.2 million for Tucson police vehicles among the fiscal 2026 community projects it said it secured. The award paperwork appears in the council agenda as Resolution No. 24207 and Communication NOV04-26-316, and a January 6, 2026 Congressional Record list of COPS Technology and Equipment Program awards includes the line 'Tucson Police Vehicles — $4,200,000.'

Source: Three Sonorans / TSON News (Medium)

Background: why § 1373 is the fight

Section 1373 sits at the centre of the national fight over immigration enforcement cooperation. The statute says state and local governments may not prohibit their officials from sending citizenship or immigration-status information to DHS — but it does not require cities to collect that information, and Tucson's position, shared by the cities suing alongside it, is that the federal government cannot use grant paperwork to force local compliance. The same conditions fight is already playing out across the country: New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin this week announced federal JAG grants to New Jersey jurisdictions with the same language, and in a separate, wider case a federal judge in Rhode Island has ruled the conditions unlawful — a ruling Tucson's approach leans on.

For Tucson's large immigrant community — and for Punjabi and other diaspora families across Arizona — the practical meaning is direct: the city is saying its police will take federal money for patrol cars without agreeing to open a channel of immigration-status data to DHS. That stance will now be tested in the four court cases the city has joined, and in how the Justice Department responds to an acceptance letter that explicitly carves out the conditions.