San Bernardino council to vote on federal program that requires cooperation with immigration enforcement

The San Bernardino City Council is set to vote Wednesday on a resolution to apply for a new federal program that would increase cooperation between the city and federal immigration enforcement and expand funding for police and surveillance.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its Model Cities Initiative Grant in June, a program to reward cities that "demonstrate the effectiveness of the Make America Safe Again Mission.” The DOJ will select two to four cities to receive up to $300 million to hire and retain police officers and to invest in new surveillance funding, including drone and artificial intelligence systems, among other things.

San Bernardino Chief of Police Darren Goodman submitted the resolution to the city council, which will need a majority vote to allow Goodman to apply for the DOJ grant.

If the application is approved and the city is ultimately selected as a grant recipient, the council will once again need to vote on whether or not to accept the grant money.

The first of nine DOJ priorities in the program description specifically states that applicants must agree to directly support law enforcement operations, including immigration enforcement.

San Bernardino is a majority-Latino city, with 70% of its population identifying as Hispanic or Latino in 2025, according to U.S. Census data. Around 23% of the city’s population is foreign-born.

Approval of the resolution “would show an inflection point between a largely Latino community in San Bernardino,” said Eddie Torres, policy director for the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, headquartered in San Bernardino. 

“It would show a complete lack of care and indignity for their well-being, for students [and] their parents, for everybody who lives in San Bernardino,” Torres said. “It would be a complete slap in the face for what they've been going through in the past year and a half.”

San Bernardino County is home to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where around 1,800 people are currently detained. In the past year, four deaths were reported at the Adelanto center, according to a report from California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office.

If selected for the award, San Bernardino will be set to receive between $75 million to $150 million to implement the DOJ-approved practices.

To be considered for the DOJ grant, cities must agree to implement "common sense” policing practices, including but not limited to:

• Enforcing prohibitions on open illicit drug use;

• Enforcing prohibitions on urban camping and loitering;

• Enforcing prohibitions on urban squatting;

• Funding mental health and substance use services; and

• Funding for services to support “American victims of crime”

Cities selected for the grant will also significantly expand intelligence gathering and data sharing via the purchase of forensic and DNA tools, body cameras, license plate readers and other technology to “modernize local crime data collection practices.”

Torres called the grant a “poison pill,” masking mass surveillance as necessary for public safety while “throwing away the Black and Brown community.”

He urged the council “to take it from the people who are directly impacted; if you do hear from your heart, you'll know that this type of ask … is something to throw away.”

The San Bernardino City Council will vote at Wednesday night’s meeting to decide whether the city will apply for the grant.

Members of the public can attend the city council meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 5 from 5-7 p.m. at the Norman F. Feldheym Central Library located at 555 W. 6th St. in San Bernardino.

For information on how to submit public comments, visit https://www.sanbernardino.gov/186/Mayor-City-Council-Public-Comment.