Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford joined a 23-state coalition on Friday in a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's move to attach immigration-enforcement conditions to public safety grants that fund local police departments. The conditions target Fiscal Year 2025 Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant funds and would require state and local police to give ICE access to detention facilities and advance notice before releasing people from custody.
“These grants provide critical resources to help Nevada law enforcement fight crime and keep our communities safe,” Ford said in a statement announcing the filing, according to NV Attorney General. “The federal government should not be allowed to jeopardize public safety funding to force states to carry out the destructive excesses of its immigration agenda.” Ford added that his office will keep fighting to ensure the funds remain available to protect Nevadans and support the officers who serve their communities.
Byrne JAG dollars are the primary source of federal formula grant funding for local police and sheriffs' offices nationwide, and federal appropriators set aside roughly $964 million for the program in Fiscal Year 2026, according to the National Association of Police Organizations. That funding supports de-escalation training, body-worn cameras, and mental health crisis intervention programs used by local agencies.
A Legal Fight With Precedent on the States' Side
This isn't the first time federal courts have weighed in on this exact question. During the first Trump administration, the Seventh and Ninth Circuit appellate courts invalidated similar Byrne JAG immigration conditions, ruling that Congress never authorized the Department of Justice to attach immigration mandates to formula grant funds and that doing so violated Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering protections, per TRAC / Justia Law.
Friday's filing is also not an isolated action. A year ago, Ford joined a 20-state lawsuit fighting similar DOJ immigration conditions on Victims of Crime Act grants, which distributed more than $24 million across 58 Nevada organizations serving nearly 57,000 crime victims in Fiscal Year 2024, according to The Nevada Independent. Just over a week before the Byrne JAG suit, Ford joined a 22-state lawsuit challenging federal demands that state motor vehicle agencies hand over drivers' personal data and immigration status from commercial license databases, under threat of losing $10 million in operating funds, the outlet reported. And in July, Ford and a 25-state coalition sued over DHS and FEMA rules that tried to tie 2026 emergency preparedness and counterterrorism grants to local immigration enforcement cooperation.
Grants Keep Flowing to Nevada Amid the Lawsuits
Even as the legal battles play out, Ford's office is continuing to administer federal public safety money on the ground. On August 19, his office opened application windows through October 2 for Nevada law enforcement agencies, courts, and nonprofits to receive grants under the federal STOP and SASP programs, which fund efforts to combat domestic violence and sexual assault.
An Election-Year Backdrop
The fight over immigration strings on police funding is unfolding as Ford, a Democrat, runs for governor of Nevada in the November election against Republican incumbent Joe Lombardo. Immigration policy and state-federal legal battles have become a central point of contention in that race.
Lombardo has publicly accused Ford of trying to turn Nevada into a “sanctuary state,” a charge that traces back to February 2025, when Ford's office released legislatively mandated, non-binding model immigration guidelines for state agencies. Ford has flatly denied the accusation, saying he opposes sanctuary policies. The governor's office took a different approach in September 2025, signing a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Justice to provide state National Guard administrative support for federal immigration operations, a move that got Nevada removed from a federal “sanctuary jurisdiction” list, according to The Nevada Independent.
This is only the latest chapter in Ford's string of lawsuits against Trump policies, which has grown steadily throughout his time in office. Nevada was also among the states that recently challenged the federal government's attempt to seize commercial truckers' data, an effort New York separately sued over earlier this month.
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