City of Providence & City of Cent. Falls v. Barr

385 F. Supp. 3d 160
CourtDistrict Court, D. Rhode Island
DecidedJune 10, 2019
DocketC.A. No. 18-CV-00437-JJM-LDA
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 385 F. Supp. 3d 160 (City of Providence & City of Cent. Falls v. Barr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Providence & City of Cent. Falls v. Barr, 385 F. Supp. 3d 160 (D.R.I. 2019).

Opinion

John J. McConnell, Jr., United States District Judge

Pursuant to 34 U.S.C. § 10152(a), Byrne JAG Program provides federal funding for state and local municipalities to support local responses to criminal justice-related concerns upon timely receipt of an application by state or local municipalities. The U.S. Department of Justice administers the program. The City of Providence received $ 212,112 of Byrne JAG Program funding (ECF No. 20-3 at 79) and planned to use the funds to hire bilingual interpreter to support building cooperation with immigrant population in Fiscal Year 2017. ECF No. 20-3 at 8, 9. The City of Central Falls received $ 28,677 of Byrne JAG Program funding (ECF No. 20-3 at 51) and it was critical to the city funding local law enforcement after its 2012 bankruptcy. ECF No. 20-3 at 40.

The DOJ issued a press release stating it would enforce three conditions known as Access, Notice, and Section 1373 conditions on Byrne JAG Program funding. ECF No. 25 at 40.

• The Access condition requires a recipient to provide federal immigration enforcement agents with access to the recipient's correctional facilities. ECF No. 20-3 at 52-71.
• The Notice condition requires a recipient to provide federal immigration enforcement agents notice of a scheduled release for a suspected alien in custody. ECF No. 20-3 at 52-71.
• The Section 1373 condition prohibits a recipient from restricting their officials from sending or receiving information, described in 8 U.S.C. 1373(a), or maintaining, or exchanging information, described in 8 U.S.C. 1373(b), regarding citizenship or immigration status with federal immigration enforcement. ECF No. 20-3 at 52-71.

*163The Cities have filed a complaint alleging that the Access, Notice, and Section 1373 conditions violate the Separation of Power (Count 1), Tenth Amendment (Count IV), Spending Clause (Count V), and represent both ultra vires (Count 11) and arbitrary and capricious agency conduct (Count III). ECF No.15 at 30-38. The Cities now move for summary judgment on all claims relating to Byrne JAG Program funds for FY 2017. ECF No. 20 at 1. Also, the Cities seek a Writ of Mandamus directing the DOJ to immediately disburse the Cities' FY 2017 award funding and reissue FY 2017 award letters without the three challenged conditions. ECF No.20-1 at 63. Additionally, the Cities seeks a permanent injunction enjoining DOJ from imposing the Access, Notice, and Section 1373 conditions on the City of Providence and City of Central Falls. ECF No. 20-1 at 63.

The case before the Court now is not a novel one because several jurisdictions, such as the Northern District of Illinois and Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the 3rd and 7th Circuits, have considered litigation on similar claims brought by similarly situated plaintiffs. The Court focuses its analysis on the threshold issue: whether statutory authority existed to authorize the Attorney General to enact the Challenged Conditions. If statutory authority was lacking, then the Court need not reach the other claims.

A. Statutory Authorization for the Challenged Conditions

The Attorney General presents three sources of statutory authority to impose the FY 2017 immigration-related conditions: the Byrne JAG statute itself, 34 U.S.C. § 10153(a) of the Byrne JAG statute, and the statutory provision defining the duties of the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ's Office of Justice Programs found in 34 U.S.C. § 10102(a). In City of Philadelphia v. Attorney Gen. of United States of America , 916 F.3d 276, 292 (3d Cir. 2019), the Third Circuit rejected these identical arguments and held that the Attorney General lacks statutory authorization to impose the challenged conditions for the following highlighted reasons.

First, while the Byrne JAG statute delegates some authority to the Attorney General to withhold funds for a grantee's failure to comply with certain laws, the sweeping nature of withholding all of a grantee's funds for any reason the Attorney General chooses is not supported by its plain text. While the Attorney General argues that "examination of the relevant statutory framework of the Byrne JAG program makes clear that Congress did delegate such authority," (ECF No. 23 at 13), the Third Circuit explained that "[s]uch authorization is nowhere to be found in the text of the [Byrne JAG] statute." City of Philadelphia , 916 F.3d at 284.

Next, neither 34 U.S.C. § 10153(a)(4), relating to data reporting, nor 34 U.S.C. § 10153(a)(5), relating to Byrne JAG program funding recipients' certification that "there has been appropriate coordination with affected agencies," authorized imposing the Access and Notice conditions unrelated to the use of grant funds because the data-reporting requirement is limited to "programmatic and financial" information and the coordination requirement should be interpreted as relating to certification that there was appropriate coordination in terms of Byrne JAG program funding recipient applications.

The Attorney General also argues that the Section 1373 Condition is authorized by 34 U.S.C. § 10153(a)(5)(D), which requires Byrne JAG program recipients to "comply with all provisions of this part and all other applicable Federal laws," The Third Circuit rejected the argument that *164Section 1373 is an "applicable law" for several reasons.

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Bluebook (online)
385 F. Supp. 3d 160, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-providence-city-of-cent-falls-v-barr-rid-2019.