New Orleans Declines $300 Million Federal Grant Tied to High-Tech Policing and Deportations
New Orleans officials announced they will not apply for the Trump administration’s $300 million Model Cities grant, rejecting its high-tech policing and immigration-enforcement conditions.
City leaders in New Orleans concluded they will not seek the $300 million Model Cities Initiative funding offered by the Trump administration, citing unresolved legal issues and the grant’s mandatory cooperation with federal immigration and surveillance mandates. Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Michael Harrison announced the choice on August 31, joining Charlotte, North Carolina, and Billings, Montana in publicly rejecting the program before the September 1 deadline.
The initiative promises high-tech policing equipment and support for re-entry programs, but requires participating cities to share immigration information with ICE and DHS and to allow federal law-enforcement surges similar to the controversial Memphis Safe Task Force. Activists such as Edith Romero of Eye on Surveillance warned the grant would enable ICE raids and terrorize communities, while ACLU of Louisiana’s Sarah Whittington noted the city’s low crime rates make the federal narrative implausible. The decision comes amid New Orleans’ ongoing budget crisis and a recent National Guard deployment in the French Quarter, underscoring tensions over federal involvement in local public safety.
Why it matters
Rejecting the grant prevents federal expansion of surveillance and deportation tools in a financially strained, majority-Black city.
How this story developed
- Jul 9 Flock Safety CEO brands transparency group as 'terrorist' amid AI camera controversy
- Aug 12 Authorities found solar‑panel parts linked to Flock cameras during a search of Sovern’s residence.
- Aug 13 Flock Safety announced it will keep license-plate-reader footage for only seven days and require police to log a case code for every query.
- Aug 13 Former Bibb County sheriff’s deputies were arrested on stalking charges for using Flock license‑plate readers for personal purposes.
- Aug 13 Flock made its audit tool mandatory and reduced the default retention window to seven days.
- Aug 18 Park rangers reported Flock cameras appearing in several national forests.
- Aug 19 West Virginia legislator Chris Anders introduced a bill to ban Flock Safety cameras on constitutional grounds.
- Aug 21 New Bedford Police Department shut down its entire Flock camera system after discovering repeated unauthorized plate searches.
- Aug 26 Texas residents rallied at a Harris County meeting to demand stronger privacy protections for Flock cameras.
- Aug 26 A clerical error in Milwaukee’s Flock camera database led to a gunpoint traffic stop, prompting the driver to hire counsel and submit a notice of claim against the city and police department.
- Aug 28 Pflugerville, Texas voted to terminate its contract with Flock Safety and switched off all 28 cameras.
- Aug 31 Senator Josh Hawley opened a Senate investigation into Flock Safety's data practices.
- Sep 1 Florida Department of Transportation cancels permits and orders removal of Flock cameras from state highways.
- Sep 9 Florida set a 30‑day deadline for police to dismantle Flock license‑plate readers on state roads.
In this story
Related stories
24 in this thread