SF Sues Trump Over Funding Freeze for Local Counterterrorism Efforts

San Francisco on Monday joined a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s move to freeze local counterterrorism funding, marking the latest in the city’s series of legal challenges against the federal government.

The Department of Homeland Security informed city officials in May that it was pausing funding for its Securing the Cities program, which pays for counterterrorism detection equipment, specialized training and technical support in 13 major U.S. cities to safeguard people across the country. The agency cited “federal funding constraints.”

City Attorney David Chiu signed onto a lawsuit led by Chicago officials challenging the freeze, saying it puts at risk cities like San Francisco and the Bay Area, which is set to host major events, including next year’s Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup games. The lawsuit alleges that the funding pause violates the Administrative Procedure Act and undermines Congress’ power to appropriate spending.

“This funding is essential to protecting the Bay Area from the radiological and nuclear events we all hope never occur,” said Mary Ellen Carroll, the executive director of the Department of Emergency Management, which manages and oversees the Bay Area’s regional Securing the Cities program. “When cities can no longer count on consistent administration of homeland security funding, our public safety suffers.”

San Francisco is considered the fourth-highest urban area of risk, vulnerability and consequence, just after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, according to the DHS.

Since 2020, the Bay Area program, which represents 17 jurisdictions across Northern California and western Nevada, has been in a nine-year DHS contract to provide around $1 million a year in support of counterterrorism efforts. But according to the city attorney’s office, more than $400,000 in reimbursement requests submitted by San Francisco in April of this year have gone unpaid.

Reimbursements from DHS have traditionally come within a matter of business days, according to Chiu’s office.

The Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative, which oversees the program from San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management, was informed on April 29 that all DHS grants were “paused” as part of a freeze on the federal government’s payment management service. Weeks later, in mid-May, DHS said that its Securing the Cities’ funding for radiological nuclear detection equipment and supplies purchases was on pause, and it did not indicate if or when it would be restored.

The suit suggests that the funding could be frozen because of plans in the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed 2026 budget to eliminate its Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, according to draft documents reported by Wired earlier this spring.

The department also has not sent “Please Apply” letters to the Securing the Cities jurisdictions for 2025, which have gone out each April or May since 2020 as a precursor to allocating new funding, and may be required to retain unspent money, according to the complaint.

Mary Ellen Callahan, who served as the assistant secretary of the DHS Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office until January, wrote in The Hill in March that eliminating the office would make the U.S. more vulnerable to a successful terrorist attack. Cities preparing to host major world events in the coming years, including the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, would be left “scrambling to find the tools, expertise and personnel needed to guard against weapons of mass destruction threats in less than 18 months,” she wrote.

The cities are asking the court to order the DHS to unfreeze the Securing the Cities funding and to process pending and future reimbursement requests for expenditures already approved by Congress. No court dates have been set since Chicago filed an amended complaint Monday, which San Francisco, Boston, Denver and Seattle joined.

“The Securing the Cities grant allows jurisdictions across the country to prevent terrorist and nuclear attacks, yet the Trump Administration illegally yanked this funding with no explanation,” Chiu said in a statement. “Keeping our communities safe is our City’s top priority, and it should be the top priority of the Trump Administration as well.”