The City of Saint Paul has joined the lawsuit filed by the City of Fresno, challenging the Trump Administration’s attempts to coerce compliance with his executive orders by unlawfully threatening to withhold, rescind, or cut grant funding from communities based solely on political ideology.
While this executive order is politically motivated, our action today is not.
Our action today is about protecting our access to critical funding that ensures our ability to administer programs that support the health, safety, and economic well-being of our community.
Our action today is about protecting our people.
In Saint Paul, we currently have $197.3 million in grants under contract from the federal government—grants that support everything from affordable housing, capital infrastructure, and sustainability projects to health and public safety initiatives and emergency management programs.
Last year, these grant funds were instrumental in:
- Rehabilitating 20 single-family homes and four multi-family housing developments;
- Creating 36 affordable rental units;
- Improving four parks and a fire station;
- Serving nearly 272,000 people through public services such as employment training, crime awareness, health services, and youth services;
- Offering Saint Paul youth 28,400 internship hours through Right Track, after which 87% of interns reported that their internship wages were a crucial source of income for themselves and their families.
- Providing 15 individuals and families with new units in an affordable rental construction project; and
- Supporting four emergency shelters; two for youth, one for adults, and one for adults and families fleeing domestic violence.
If we lost the ability to fund lifechanging programs like these, the damage to our community would be irreparable.
Policymaking must be about empowering communities to build opportunity.
Instead, the administration’s executive order prioritizes politics over people and weaponizes ideological agendas to divide and disenfranchise.
Make no mistake: When we fail to invest upfront, the costs only grow, shifting the burden and multiplying the bill.
As I stated in February, we do not tolerate federal funds being withheld as ransom for unlawful political demands.
What our residents pay in federal taxes cannot be turned into a political weapon.
Our action today defends the fundamental reason why federal grants exists—to empower communities, not to enforce political loyalty.
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