As its name suggests, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program is designed to help law enforcement agencies crack down on various forms of online child exploitation, particularly sexual exploitation. In San Diego and across the country, local, state and federal agencies team up — w ith the help of federal grant funding — in an effort to protect children from online predators and investigate and prosecute online child sexual exploitation. But this year, the Trump administration is conditioning federal funding for at least two California-based ICAC task forces on the unrelated White House priorities of immigration enforcement and anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by the cities of San Diego and San Jose. Those conditions, and the subsequent lawsuit, follow a similar pattern that has played out since President Donald Trump has been back in office. The White House has repeatedly attempted to condition federal funding, including from such agencies as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on local municipalities complying with immigration enforcement and anti-DEI policies, often targeting so-called sanctuary cities. Those local governments, including San Diego and California, have repeatedly alleged in lawsuits that such conditions are illegal. Federal district judges have largely sided with the local governments. The new lawsuit, filed in San Diego federal court, alleged that the Trump administration inserted the two “unrelated, policy-driven grant conditions” into the cities’ grant awards in an allegedly unlawful attempt to coerce the cities into implementing the administration’s agenda. The suit alleged that such coercion violates numerous federal laws, “the separation of powers and other bedrock principles of the U.S. Constitution.” According to the lawsuit, San Diego and San Jose both have a Friday deadline to accept the grant and its conditions; if they don’t, San Diego would lose out on a grant worth more than $581,000, while San Jose would lose its grant of more than $641,000. “In short, Plaintiffs are confronted with an untenable choice: either acquiesce to conditions that are unlawful and unconstitutional, or lose critically needed federal funds that enable local law enforcement to combat internet crimes against children and protect our community’s most vulnerable members,” the lawsuit alleged. The suit asked a judge to declare the immigration and anti-DEI conditions unlawful and to enjoin the Trump administration from applying or enforcing the conditions. The Department of Justice declined to comment Monday. It is named as the lead defendant in the case, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and other department leaders, as well as the programs that administer ICAC grants. “These conditions have nothing to do with protecting children from online predators,” San Diego City Attorney Heather Ferbert, whose office filed the suit, said in a statement. “Congress created the ICAC program to fund investigations and prosecution of internet crimes against children, not to coerce local governments into adopting unrelated policy positions. Our lawsuit seeks to ensure that San Diego can continue its vital work safeguarding children without being forced to choose between unconstitutional conditions and losing critical funding.” According to the lawsuit, the San Diego Police Department, which is the lead agency for the San Diego ICAC Task Force, applied in early December for a grant in the same amount as the one it received a year prior: $581,664. The San Jose Police Department, the lead agency for Silicon Valley’s regional ICAC Task Force, which covers 11 counties in the Bay Area, applied a few days later for a grant of $641,658. The Department of Justice, through its Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which is the office that administers the ICAC Task Force Program, approved both applications for San Diego and San Jose on Dec. 23, according to the lawsuit. But the cities alleged that in the approval packages they received and that they must sign to receive their grants, the Department of Justice included two troubling conditions. The first requires that each city “certifies that it does not operate any programs … that violate any applicable Federal civil rights or nondiscrimination laws … including any such programs having components relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the lawsuit alleged. President Donald Trump has targeted DEI programs since being back in office, issuing an executive order on Inauguration Day seeking to terminate “equity-related” grants and requiring a federal budgeting agency to review grant recipients that advance DEI or environmental justice programs. The cities contend that the anti-DEI condition in the grant acceptance package is unlawful, as well as “vague and ambiguous” because it fails to make clear what conduct is prohibited. “This language, when read in context of the current Administration’s broader efforts to redefine antidiscrimination law, creates substantial uncertainty about what activities are prohibited and what exact certifications Plaintiffs are making by accepting their ICAC grant awards,” the lawsuit stated. The second condition at issue in the lawsuit has to do with funding potentially being unavailable to jurisdictions that purportedly impede or hinder the federal government’s immigration enforcement. California state law generally bans local police from cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security or any other federal agencies when it comes to immigration enforcement. In the grant acceptance package, under “unallowable uses of funds,” the Department of Justice lists “any program or activity, at any tier that, directly or indirectly, violates … or promotes or facilitates the violation of … federal immigration law … or impedes or hinders the enforcement of federal immigration law — including by failing to comply with (a federal immigration statute), give access to DHS agents, or honor DHS requests and provide requested notice to DHS agents.” San Diego and San Jose contend that this condition is also vague and ambiguous, that it has “no nexus to the purpose of the ICAC grant program” and that it represents the Trump administration trying to impose its policy preferences on “Welcoming Cities” — often also known as sanctuary cities — that limit the use of local resources to assist with federal civil immigration enforcement. “While Plaintiffs are not going to stand in the way of lawful federal immigration enforcement, neither must they be coerced to facilitate Defendants’ enforcement of federal immigration laws as part of ICAC grant funds,” the lawsuit contended. ...read more read less